


seasons unanticipated

by wenandwhere



Category: Polygon/McElroy Vlogs & Podcasts RPF
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Magic, Cats, Ghost Pat, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Roommates, Sharing a Bed, Slow Burn, Strangers to Lovers, Witch Brian, oblique metaphorical discussion of suicidal ideation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-03
Updated: 2019-10-07
Packaged: 2020-04-07 03:57:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 77,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19077013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wenandwhere/pseuds/wenandwhere
Summary: Brian, a witch, has one year to create a new spell for his thesis candidacy. One year living alone in a witch house in a small, remote town, apart from everyone he knows. One year to focus entirely upon academic pursuits.Pat, a ghost, is living in the witch house and has been for many years already.They just have to coexist/get along/hold back for one year.





	1. Summer I

When he hops out of the truck, Brian’s surprised by how the amount of dust that plumes up around his shoes and comes to rest visibly on the slate grey of his linen summer cloak. He pulls his hat firmly onto his head and his empty hands twitch as he considers conjuring a breeze to clear the dust before deciding to wait until he has a quiet moment.

He swings around to the back of the truck, Zuko at his heel, and finds that the driver—Clayton, he needs to be good about remembering names here—has already done him the kindness of unloading his trunk.

“Tara said she’d be by around noon, whenever she’s back from Town,” Clayton says, nodding his head slightly in the presumed direction of the larger neighboring town. “Let me know if you need a hand with anything else, I’m at the general store most days so I’ll see you around.”

They shake hands and Brian calls out his fifteenth, “Thank you!” since the train station and Clayton gives him a small smile and a nod before he’s in his truck and heading down the narrow dirt road again, leaving more dust in his wake.

Brian stares down the road a long time, eyes shielded from the worst of the bright summer sun by the wide brim of his pointed hat. Even with the bugs and birds and leaves rustling all around here, it’s much more still than he’s used to. So much quieter. 

_I’m alone_ , he thinks with an acute flash of panic.

Zuko sneezes, perhaps from the dust, perhaps in response.

“Come here, you,” Brian says as he scoops up his familiar and holds him close. Zuko pretends to tolerate this indignity simply because he can feel Brian’s heart rate rising, pretends that this is why he is deigning to purr comfortingly, but they both know he secretly enjoys the coddling. 

The scene around them is unfamiliarly rural. Trees tall and plentiful—they’re decidedly in the woods—except for the clearing surrounding the humble stone cabin. He was told he’d have a workshed, a well, some field space nearby, but none of that is readily visible from the front of the witch house.

Once the threat of panic subsides, Zuko squirms and hops down gracefully, leading the way toward the front steps and watching impatiently as Brian tries to roll his trunk along the dirt. He’d thought the cobblestones near the academy were a hassle but this is just as obnoxious in an entirely different way. Hopefully he’ll remember to charm the wheels in a year.

There’s no lock on the door—why would there be when they’re a good mile and a half from the nearest neighbor?—but Brian still pauses ritualistically outside of the door to his home for the next year. He places his hand in the center of it and, without any magic, takes a moment to hope that together with the house they will make it a happy year. It’s a silly prayer without even a stick of cinnamon to give it any backbone but he feels, superstitiously, that if he can convince the house that he isn’t walking in terrified, perhaps it will be kind to him.

It’s strange to be the only person bearing witness to a significant event in your life when you’ve always been surrounded by family and friends, but at least he has Zuko beside him as he takes a deep breath, twists the doorknob, holds, steps over the threshold, and exhales.

It’s dark inside save for the light through the windows, and it smells a little dusty, but there’s not an abundance of cobwebs or any heavy dark magic laying in wait for him. Brian twists his wrist in a practiced swirl and a ball of light appears above his fingertips. He sends it upward with a bounce of the wrist without looking after it and brings his trunk in against the wall next to the door. He sets it down gently, and then immediately lays on the floor in front of it, scooting around until his knees are bent up over the top of the trunk, pulling his hat down over his face. 

Tara had told him it was small, one little bathroom and one big everything else room, but it’s a lot to take in.

Under the darkness of the hat, he’s relieved to find that the wood floor provides some cool relief from the summer air. He needs to open the windows, try to get a breeze going through here. He waves a hand blindly toward the direction he thinks a window is in, searches, finds it, pulls. Maybe the general store will have some fresh mint he can use as a cooling base, that’ll make a little spell go a long way…

He’s going to have to walk so far to get there, he’s really going to have to do some careful planning and make sure he gets everything he needs. There’s no roommate to beg favors from here. 

It’s a shame, this far out they could sing as loud as they wanted, play in a discordant cacophony, and no one would hear and care and tell them to stop and threaten them with retaliatory spells. Brian can still do that alone, can sing strong and unselfconscious. Not that that ever stopped him much before. He could scream his lungs out, no one would come running. He’s well and truly alone.

He’s lost in thought, in this momentary dalliance from the overabundance of responsibilities ahead of him, when he hears Zuko hiss and feels an adjoining surge of fear.

He tears the hat off his face and opens his eyes to focus on a man standing above him and he does, in fact, scream.

He twists around wildly, flailing his legs off the trunk so that he’s on his knees and launching himself forward to knock the man over as he flees.

But he _doesn’t_ knock the man over.

He feels the resistance on his shoulder for a moment, against this man’s leg, and it sends a chill down his spine but that’s adrenaline for you.

And then the chill is not just down his spine. His arm is _so cold_. It’s like a small wave of ice water that runs from his shoulder down to his fingertips as he moves into and forward and _through_.

Brian scrambles to his feet and pants around tremulous vocalizations as he tries to process the opaque milky-bluish figure before him, a long-haired man staring at him intensely with an expression that reads as confused and angry. Trespassed. Brian takes in a particularly deep gasp and the ball of light finally winks out of existence, and the man glows with a dim bioluminescence and stays still.

Afraid to break eye contact, Brian backs slowly toward the still-open front door, movements anxious-sharp like everything's in slow motion even though it can’t take more than a few seconds before he’s out the door with Zuko mirroring him the whole time. He shuts the door as he goes, comically gently, and runs full-tilt into the woods.

 

Brian knows better than to run deep into a forest without leaving some kind of trail. Even with his magic, even when he’s not freaking the fuck out, he’s cautious. So he runs in a straight line until he feels he has gone far enough to have a private moment with his feelings and falls behind a tree, bringing his knees tight to his chest and heaving in breaths.

It’s not that he’s never seen a ghost. They’re around, especially in cities like where his academy was. Only a handful back home. He’d never really interacted with any of them… to be fair they’d never tried to interact with him either. He hasn’t seen many who had interest in holding a conversation, not in person anyway, though he’s of course read about them and heard alleged radio interviews. Mostly they just wandered around looking lost. But they still… he’d never _touched_ one! The memory of the cold has him flexing his hand to prove to himself it’s still a warm, living part of his body.

Zuko is pacing around him, now arching his body into that hand, and that’s proof enough for Brian that all of that really just happened, having a shared witness. 

“What are we going to do,” he whispers, finding that his breathing has calmed enough to speak.

Zuko gives a chirpy rasping meow and pulls gently at Brian’s cloak with his claws, trying not to snag the loose weave of the fabric. Brian moves to sit cross-legged and holds the cloak open, letting his familiar step into the protective circle of his lap as though passing through a curtain. They sit like that together in contemplative silence for a while, reconfiguring whatever preconceived notions they had about their first day in Hartdell. 

 

Some time later, while Zuko is dozing and Brian’s continuously running spells to keep his legs from falling asleep underneath him, they hear a car coming up the road nearby. In silent agreement, they both stand and start walking back the way they ran.

Brian’s heart is probably only pounding a little bit more than it normally would have been if today had gone according to plan when he steps out of the woods and back out in front of the witch house. He’s got a lot more leaves and bits of dirt stuck to his cloak than he would have preferred for this introduction, but that’s the direction today has gone in.

“Hi,” he waves toward the woman exiting her truck in what he hopes is a calm, confident manner and not that of an apparent madman materializing from the woods rather than the front of the perfectly good house he has been given to live in for the year.

“Oh, Brian? Nice to officially meet you, I’m Tara,” she shakes his hand and does not give him a once-over. “I’m sorry I couldn’t meet you at the station, business came up in Town at the last minute. I’m glad to see Clayton got you here in one piece.”

She sounds much the same in person as she did over the phone, one of those rare people whose voice doesn’t distort much through miles of wires. Brian’s a little surprised by how young she is, but she radiates competence in person even more than she did at a distance, helping him through the application and approval and relocation process to get him here.

“Yeah, he was great.” _So there’s one thing…_ “Um. Thanks again.” _It’s the strangest thing!_ “For letting me set up here for my thesis.” _But there’s a ghost in the empty house you’ve given me to live in_ “I really appreciate it.”

Tara smiles, “Thank _you_! We haven’t had a witch here since I was a little kid, it’ll be great to see how it affects the community and what you’re able to get out of it. Sorry you’re kind of far out, but I guess you like the woods at least.” And there it is, the pointed staring at the state of his cloak.

“Ah… I haven’t spent a lot of time around forests like this,” Brian says quietly. It’s the truth, but it’s not the whole truth. Time to have this conversation. “I’m really sorry if you mentioned it and I forgot with everything else going on but there’s a ghost in there and-“

“What?” Tara’s loud and suddenly stone-faced. “Is this seriously where he’s been camped out?”

“Oh. I… guess so?”

She brings a hand to her forehead and gives a frustrated sigh before nodding to herself, then looks to Brian and says, “Ok, I’m going to take care of this so just give me a minute and you can… take a look at the property if you haven’t yet. Or look at it again.” 

With that, she marches into the house purposefully and shuts the door sharp behind her. Brian stays rooted in his spot briefly, then takes her suggestion— _it was not a suggestion_ , he thinks—and swings around to the back of the house.

There’s a well with a hand pump near the back door, which yields what he’s been promised is clean drinking water after a handful of tries and Zuko laps at it gratefully before wandering off to do cat things. 

There’s a small garden that looks suspiciously well-taken care of. It’s got rows of plants already growing strong so unless the last witch living here decades ago had some heretofor unknown gardening powers, someone’s been tending to this plot. He wonders if Tara got it started knowing someone was going to be moving in.

There’s a shed that, when he opens it, reveals only tools and buckets and hooks along the ceiling for hanging and drying plants.

There’s mostly a lot of space. He could put in a chicken coop, maybe. Bee hives. A pond. He’s not sure how good any of that would do him really in a year.

There’s a clear path that goes a little further back into the woods, and he doesn’t walk far until he happens upon a small field of green grain. Young wheat, maybe? Brian has never felt so strongly reminded of the fact that he is not a farmer.

He wanders cautiously back near the side of the house, quieting his footsteps by patting the air in front of him slowly. There’s a window here, if he could just open it a little… He coaxes it up with a quiet spell, familiar from years of mischief, couples it seamlessly with another to enhance his hearing.

“-told me where you’ve been set up I could’ve tried to do something but it’s too late now!”

“I don’t have to report to you, this place was empty for _years_ before I came here.”

“Well, it’s not empty anymore.”

There’s a long stretch of silence. The voice of the ghost is deeper than Brian would have expected, more solid. He doesn’t sound dead.

“You’re kicking me out.”

“I didn’t say th-“

“I wasn’t asking.”

“I’ve been setting this up for months, Patrick. You were not here the times I came by to check that this place was even habitable. There was no trace of you. I’m sorry this is how it turned out but I made a deal that, honestly? I didn’t even know you were at all involved in.”

“…Okay.”

“I’m sorry. Look. You can stay with me for a bit.”

“'S okay. I’ll figure something out.”

A pause. 

“I’m _sorry_ , Patrick.”

Another pause.

“Woah, Charlie, what’s-“

And then Brian feels an alert _zing_ in his mind and, _shit_ , rushes around to the front without padding his footsteps or hesitating to throw open the door in time to see Zuko—fuck the other window was still open and Zuko must’ve mirrored his spying—staring down a grey tabby. He’s utterly still other than his puffed up twitching tail, not growling or making any moves, just watching intently.

All in all it is a very calm stand off. Brian was prepared for more imminent danger than just another house cat. The cats observe each other quietly, the humans observe them quietly. Brian’s ready to spring in and scoop up his familiar if a fight breaks out, not wanting to see or feel his pain, when both cats seem to decide simultaneously that they are not interested in each other right now and turn away, Zuko moving to Brian and the tabby setting to scratching his shoulder.

Brian scoops his familiar up obediently and then, returning his attention to everyone else in the room, realizes that the ghost—Patrick?—looks visibly relieved, though still somewhat shaken. 

The silence grows heavy.

“Hi. I’m Brian. Sorry I freaked out earlier,” Brian begins to step forward and extend his hand, heart thudding, then awkwardly pivots it to a wave.

“Patrick,” the ghost responds flatly, maintaining an uncomfortable amount of eye contact. He apologizes for nothing.

“Who’s your kitty?” Tara asks, seemingly unaffected by the heavy atmosphere.

“This is my familiar, Zuko.” Brian’s mouth is dry. How does he salvage this situation? “Is this your cat?”

“His name’s Charles,” Patrick says. Staring.

“So you and Charles live here?” _Fuck_ -

“Not anymore,” Pat says, finally looking down, running his hand through his hair.

Tara sighs.

“Look, um…,” _No, no, think before you speak_ , “it doesn’t look like you really have a lot in here.” _He hates you what are you doing he’s going to hate you_ , “And I’m going to be pretty busy with my magic,” _You can’t even handle the thought of living alone for ten minutes Jonah was right_ , “So if you wanted to stay here,” _What are you doing what are you doing what are you doing_ “It wouldn’t bother me.”

Pat is staring again.

“That’s very kind of you, Brian,” Tara says slowly, carefully, “I know that’s not what we agreed to, we can take some time to talk about it if you don’t want to make any decisions right away.” She turns to give Patrick a pointed look, but his focus is entirely on Brian.

Patrick holds out a hand.

Brian swallows. Zuko flows out of his arms like water. He steps forward and takes Pat’s hand, shakes it once firmly. It’s cold.

Pat steps in close enough that he can’t see his eyes— _finally_ —and says quietly, “I was here first.”


	2. Summer II

It’s not that Brian’s never been disliked before—not everyone gets along and that’s _fine_ —but he’s certainly never been disliked so directly that it lays over him like a heavy fog. He’s a performer. He knows how to make himself likable, to mitigate the fear that everyone is maybe just putting up with him.

He knows that’s not true. Usually.

But it’s inescapable now because the threat of Patrick _silently appearing_ and filling him with palpable dread is _constant_.

He sighs and abandons his attempt at writing a letter home. He moves his chair back abruptly, pulls his hat on, then turns to find Zuko asleep on his cloak. “Hey,” he pokes him, gets a surprised _mrrp?_ in response. “Goin’ for a walk.”

Zuko stretches and hops down to drink from his dish while Brian shakes out his hopelessly wrinkled cloak, spelling it more smooth half-heartedly after he pulls it on before marching out into the sun with a cat at his heels.

 

_Tara had taken him back into town to give him a proper tour and introduce him to too many people in succession. At least everything was small enough that he wasn’t likely to get lost trying to find his way around again later when he might actually know what it was he'd need to go looking for._

_They lingered first at what Tara referred to as The Municipal Building (“I’m mayor, postmaster, and librarian!” she had stated with a harried edge), a humble structure with some nice murals of woods and deer inside, and Brian promised her he’d be back soon to survey the offerings of the basement library. Perhaps it had some ancient scrolls on befriending hostile ghosts._

 

He knew for certain now that the garden was Patrick’s doing. He’d been made to feel very stupid for having asked when he’d been on the receiving end of a withering look and a, “Who else’s would it be?”

Brian is… not a plant guy. He doesn’t dislike them, he just can’t identify them by their leaves. Maybe that was part of the reason thesis candidates from city academies were _strongly_ encouraged to apply for witch houses in rural areas. Maybe only by understanding both leaves _and_ mass transit could one create new magic. 

He really could gain something in that way, he has to admit. Using natural components as a backbone for his spells has never been his strongest skill, but he at least knows how to cool a breeze down with mint and has leaves resting inside all of the windowsills.

Curious, he feels around in the air until he can pick up a thread of energy coming off one of the plants nearer to him. It doesn’t feel familiar enough to identify as anything other than probably edible, but he’s never really mixed food and magic enough to have a frame of reference. It seems a bit young, so he lets the invisible strands slip through his fingers instead of pulling any harder. He can’t risk damaging the plant and incurring any more quiet disdain.

 

_More time was spent at the general store where Clayton was, as promised, at the counter. He gave a smile and wave of acknowledgement, then went back to stocking jars near the register._

_“I ordered a few things for your house that just got in today,” Tara said as she broke away near the entrance, “Go ahead and grab anything else you need, I’m gonna load up the truck.”_

_It was strangely quiet compared to the stores Brian’s used to. He was definitely the only customer there, and although there were faint strains of music they seemed to be coming from a personal radio near the front rather than raining down from the ceiling._

_He didn’t have a lot of money to last the year, just his academy stipend unless he could figure out a side job, so he took his time wandering the small store, checking prices meticulously. He should’ve tried to bring a phone from home, he never realized that they cost so much…_

_Clayton confirmed that they would have mint available year-round, showed him where to find catalogues of large and specialty items he could have ordered and shipped, and rang up the basket of food while Brian ran to fetch a large sack of oats._

_It seemed as good a time as any to start gathering some ghost info, but right as he was affecting an air of nonchalance, Tara returned to whisk him away._

 

Past the green grain field the path leads through the woods for a long while—joined occasionally by other paths extending out of sight into the woods—before Brian can hear running water. He knows there’s a stream on one side of town and it seems he’s getting close to that side.

Five minutes further and the stream is visible. Another ten and the path leads up to a bridge with worn wooden steps but a surprisingly sturdy body and metal railings. Zuko stares down into the water, horrified and enthralled. When Brian joins him he sees the flash of a fish swimming past. Unless he learns how not to be weak to Zuko's whims quickly, he accepts that he will be getting a fishing pole very soon.

 

_Brian was surprised when Tara stopped in front of a tavern. Zuko remained resolutely curled up on the center seat in the truck, leaving the humans to their own devices._

_There was a sign with a couple deer on it out front, but Tara had explained it was just in keeping with the Hartdell motif and everyone actually just called this place Simone’s._

_The eponymous barkeeper greeted them upon entry. She shook Brian’s hand as she introduced herself and in the very same breath asked, “You’re old enough to be in here right? Tara didn’t bring you here for a small-town sting operation?”_

_“You got me,” Brian returned loftily, “I’m just a lawman on a mission to ruin small town bars.”_

_“I found where Pat Gill’s been set up,” Tara interjected, leaning in over the bar conspiratorially and stopping Simone’s laugh short._

_“No!”_

_“I think he’s been in the witch house_ this whole time _.”_

_“That asshole! I can’t believe he never told me!”_

_Brian felt like he wasn’t meant to hear this, like he’d already trespassed on Patrick’s until-recently well-kept privacy, but he was so obviously standing right next to them and Simone was shouting so loudly that they must not have cared._

_“Wait so is he moving, then?”_

_“No, this crazy witch kid,” Tara gestured to Brian unnecessarily—no other witches present, he’d been told, “steps right in and immediately offers to be_ roommates _with him!”_

_Simone dissolved into cacophonous laughter, doubling over slowly until her forehead touched the bar. It’s such an intense reaction that Brian wondered if he was being made fun of until she reached out and grabbed his arm, taking another moment to collect herself before she spoke again._

_“If he gives you any trouble, just let me know. I’ll knock some sense into him. He’s probably a little pouty right now, I’ve been asking about his secret base for_ years _and that fucker was right there this whole time!”_

_“The place is empty,” Tara said by way of explanation, “Even if we’d looked in earlier I don’t think we would’ve known.”_

_“There’s things growing in the garden,” Brian thought aloud. “It’s really organized. It must be his.”_

_Simone raised her eyebrows, visibly impressed. “That must’ve taken some work, that place was a dump when we were kids. Oh shit, this explains a lot… That’s so many mysteries solved at once, I don’t know what I’m going to waste my time thinking about now! Tara, I’m gonna have to spread some rumors to keep things interesting. You should spread some too. About me!”_

_She and Tara chatted idly for a few more minutes—Brian worked in a belated proper introduction—and when they finally parted ways he promised to come back soon, though he had no response when Simone yelled as he was leaving, telling him to, “Bring Pat!”_

 

On the way back from the bridge, Brian pauses to think by a tree. He doesn’t want to be so nervous about his home for the year, it’s going to keep him from focusing as intently on his studying as he needs to and all of this will have been for nothing.

He swirls up a small breeze and alights a leaf for Zuko to chase, keeping his hands busy while he thinks. Clearly he’s either got to confront Patrick or win his favor. He’d tried to bridge the gap between them a few times in last couple of days, but neither trying to engage on polite conversation nor keeping to himself and staying out of the way seemed to have been appreciated.

At least he’d learned a few things: Patrick cannot eat, he walks through the walls but it looks like that’s uncomfortable for him, and Charles follows him more often than not. At night, when Brian gets ready to sleep, Patrick leaves the witch house and doesn’t return until morning.

Zuko catches a leaf and begins chomping with reckless abandon and Brian leaps out of his thoughts and back to the present, scolding, “No!” and prying his familiar’s mouth open with practiced hands.

 

_It was getting late, but not yet dark, when they drove back down the road to the witch house and Brian thought that he really should bring up the elephant in the room because they were going to be back at that room in just a few minutes._

_“Is there anything else I should know? About Patrick?”_

_“Probably not,” Tara said, simple as anything. “Not anything I know anyway. He’s a pretty private guy so I don’t know what to tell you. He comes into town now and then but mostly keeps to himself. Simone’s as close to him as anyone gets, they grew up together.”_

_Maybe she could sense Brian’s continued unease and added, “He’s not a bad guy, he’s just been through some stuff. Obviously. Seriously, let me know if you change your mind or if he gives you any trouble at all and I’ll sort it out. You’re here for your studies, I’m here to facilitate that.”_

_“Thank you,” Brian said, and he meant it._

 

Outside the shed, they find Charles conspicuously alone, scratching his shoulder with single-minded determination. It’s not the first time Brian’s seen him apart from Patrick, but it’s the first time he’s seen him outside. The thought of approaching him inside of the house felt like further intrusion, but maybe under these circumstances they can meet properly.

He crouches down and holds out a hand, still several feet away. Zuko stays further back, watching with a self-assured disinterest. 

Charles either does not notice or does not care, throwing all of his focus into trying to rotate his head enough to gnaw at his back.

Brian’s taking this opportunity to creep closer when Zuko pushes his attention in a direction he hadn’t considered and he stops, moving his outstretched hand around to feel the air. 

A _ha_ , no wonder.

He stands and, quick as he can get away with without scaring Charles, fetches a bucket from the shed and then fills it with a couple pumps of well-water before returning. 

Bucket at his feet, he feels around with both hands for the small tangles of threads coming off of Charles and winds them around his fingertips before pulling in and then down toward the bucket, shaking them off. He repeats this twice more before he’s got all of the fleas he can find in the bucket. 

Charles gives him a long meow and stares at him for several seconds before trotting off. _He takes after Patrick_ , Brian thinks.

 

_The house was empty when they arrived. It was empty when they carried in a wardrobe, a table, a chair, a lamp, and a mattress._

_It was empty when Tara left and told him to call her if he needed anything because she didn’t know that he didn't buy a phone._

_It was empty when Zuko mapped out the edges of all of the new furniture with his face._

_It was empty when Brian set his hat on the table and collapsed face-down on the mattress on the ground and stretched his arms wide, reveling in how his fingertips could barely reach the edges._

_It was empty when he spent too much time deciding how to put away his groceries, considering how few of them he had, in that small kitchen with an ancient refrigerator and a wood stove._

_He wasn’t sure when exactly the house became not-empty, but it happened sometime between testing the faucet of the kitchen sink and turning around to grab a cup and he_ yelped _at the sight of Patrick, sitting on the chair, watching him._

_At least he stopped staring after that, busied himself after getting caught in the act by getting what he assumed was Charles' water dish from the bathroom and refilling it. He was at least polite enough to murmur, “Excuse me,” while he stepped into Brian’s space to get to the sink._

 

It’s close to sunset and Brian’s busy writing a letter to his mom when he hears Patrick’s voice break the silence suddenly.

“You got rid of Charlie’s fleas?”

Brian draws a sudden line through the middle of his letter and hisses a sharp swear before he whirls around. He's never going to get used to Patrick sneaking up on him like this. Maybe he would agree to wear a bell…

"Yeah." If he could just read Patrick's expression, he could know whether or not he's overstepped another boundary. "Just a quick spell, I promise it didn't hurt him. I’ve had to use the same one on Zuko.”

Patrick nods, keeps looking at him for a while, then sighs and runs a hand through his hair, dropping his shoulders in a slouch.

"Look, I'm sorry. For being an asshole. I’ve had this place to myself for years. I’m not trying to make you so uncomfortable that you leave.” He pauses here, then laughs and continues, “Actually, I was doing that. But you helped Charles and now I feel like a dick. I just… I don’t know how to be around people for too long anymore.”

It’s more than Patrick has spoken to him the last few days combined, and the shock takes a moment to wear off before Brian remembers he needs to respond. “It’s alright. It’s a surprising situation. In general and also for me! This is new for me, too. I’ve had roommates but I've never lived with a ghost. Not that it's— How long have you been a ghost?”

He looks up to think and Brian realizes for the first time that he’s wearing glasses. He wonders if ghosts _need_ glasses.

“Seventeen years, just about.”

Brian laughs, which is absolutely not the correct response.

“I’m sorry! I just—that’s not a long time! I was gonna tell you that it’s been so long, no wonder you don't know how to be with people.” _Too honest!_ “But, um, I’m sure it’s still hard. And I guess I assumed all the other ghosts I’ve heard about were a lot older.”

Patrick chuckles, at least, and says, “At one point they were all seventeen-years-dead too. My turn: What the fuck are you doing _here_?”

Brian turns around to sit fully backwards in the chair, crossing his arms over the back of it. He realizes, too late to ask about it, that Pat must’ve died pretty young. He wonders if it’s even okay to ask about that kind of thing. “Do you know much about witches?”

“Nope. None around since I’ve been here.”

“Basically… okay, tell me if I over-explain this. In the time most of my friends went off to college and found jobs, I went to an academy to hone my magic abilities and did _not_ get a job. Academy programs last six years, then you can apply to be a thesis candidate or go off into the world.”

Patrick hums, following along so far.

“So for a thesis, you’re supposed to spend a year apart from your friends and family, go somewhere new and different, to really focus and… get a broader perspective, things like that. Because you’re supposed to be discovering or reworking or creating new magic.”

“So since you’re apart from your friends and family that means that they won’t be coming here?” He’s got his eyebrows raised and looks eager to clarify this point.

“Nope. I am an island. Did you think I was going to start bringing everyone I know here for a house party?”

He throws his arms up in a shrug, “Maybe! I don’t know. A lot happened at once so I figured everything was going to keep going to shit. I’ve been coming here since I was a kid and I still don’t even know what a witch house _is_.”

“It’s like… a really unobstructed space. There’s not a lot of energy or distraction to get in the way of whatever you’re doing. And usually there’ve been enough spells cast around it that the home or land is more suited for magic.”

“Why _here_? Hartdell, not the house.”

“My academy had contacts with different towns that have witch houses set up. Tara had just got around to applying to be one of those contacts, I guess, when I was applying for candidacy and got in touch with her. They really wanted us all to go to small towns since we were in a city, get a new perspective and be somewhere quiet. And it’s a good way to spread us out. And now I’m here. _And_ it was my turn to ask a question. How long have _you_ been here?”

And there it is, the harbinger of bad jokes, a shit-eating grin as Pat effortlessly quips, “My whole life!”


	3. Summer III

They’ve been easing into their detente and figuring out how to coexist for a few more days when Patrick apparently feels comfortable enough to slouch himself against the wall beside the table and ask, “How’s the oatmeal?”

Brian’s been doing more stirring than eating, taking time to _really_ mush it around before he can brace himself to swallow. “It’s fine.”

Patrick quirks a brow. “You’ve had oatmeal five meals in a row.”

“Yeah…,” Brian stares deep into his still-half full bowl, carving figure-eights with his spoon. “I need to go into town. I’ve been putting it off.”

Satisfied with this confession, Patrick pushes off the wall and retrieves Charles' empty food dish. Brian can hear him poking around in the cupboard and realizes he probably put the cat food they combined back somewhere it doesn’t usually go. He hopes this wasn’t a big mistake and flinches a little when he hears Patrick give a frustrated grunt.

“Hey,” he turns and Patrick is holding the large food jar out to him, his eyes on the floor. “Can you get the lid for me? I can’t twist hard enough when it’s on this tight.”

Brian is unexpectedly relieved to leave his tepid oatmeal behind, meeting Patrick in the kitchen in three steps and opening the jar with a moderate amount of force before handing it back, barely brushing his cold fingers.

“Sorry, I’ll try to remember to leave that one loose. Maybe I’ll put a note on it.” He’s seen it a happen couple of times before, Patrick twisting the lid with steadily increased force until his grip slips and his fingers phase through it.

Patrick nods, pours food out for Charles, and leaves the jar open on the counter for Brian. He sets the dish down, cat weaving between his legs, with an overly-formal, “Your meal, Charles.”

Zuko is standing on his hind legs straining for his own dish in Brian’s hands when Patrick brings the conversation back around with, “The pantry’s pretty empty, have you eaten a vegetable since you got here?”

“Why does it feel like you’ve caught me breaking a rule?” This is not an actual answer, because Brian has not. He’d had some eggs, a loaf of bread, apples, jelly… So, _yeah_ , he forgot a few things while he was distracted by moving to an entirely new place and realizing he had an unexpected sullen ghost living with him.

With a dissatisfied ,“Hmph,” Patrick turns on his heel and walks out the front door—he’s stopped silently going through walls, at least—and leaves it open until he returns a minute later and shuts it, tossing something at Brian that he scrambles to catch and keep hold of before he registers that it’s an ear of corn.

“Thank you?”

“Look,” Patrick sighs, then runs a hand through his hair, “I’m not going to begrudge you all the shit you can do because you’re alive. You can do whatever you want with that, I’ve had a long time to make peace with my situation. But I’d do anything to be able to eat again. And maybe you’re not into a lot of food and that’s _fine_ , but you only get so many meals in your life so just think about trying to enjoy them instead of choking down plain oatmeal.”

It's strange, hearing Patrick open up even that slight amount. It makes him pay attention.

“Sorry…”

“No, you—Don’t apologize. Just think about it. I don’t know—look, you need food. Let’s go to Simone’s. Or eat the raw corn first, I don’t care, but I can’t watch you trying to baby-bird that shit down anymore.”

“It’s not _plain_ ,” Brian responds, already scraping the oatmeal into a compost bucket, “There’s cinnamon and honey.”

“Okay well obviously it’s going to take more than that.”

“I usually add strawberries.” The bowl’s soaking in the sink now and Brian’s fastening his cloak and getting his shoes on. He hesitates, adds, “Do you have any? They're my favorite.”

“Nah, I’m—I was allergic.”

Brian feels guilty, accidentally bringing things up that lead to Patrick explicitly mentioning that he is dead. He doesn’t get angry about it, but he gets a little quiet, doesn’t look him in the eye quite as much, doesn’t talk about those things at length. It’s like walking through a minefield, but the mines are awkward conversations so everyone’s just going to feel uncomfortable instead of blowing up. Probably.

“One year,” Brian says. He’s taken to saying this like an apology and a promise: He will be out of Patrick’s way in a quantifiable amount of time so please, put up with him until then.

“One year,” Patrick echoes, acknowledges.

After filling a canteen with water, Brian nudges Zuko and the two of them meet Patrick outside to head into town. 

“If you don't mind my asking, why are you growing food?” Brian cannot walk next to Patrick for thirty minutes in complete silence. The tension of trying to figure out whether they should be talking or if breaking the silence would be rude will kill him. Best to get things going right away.

Patrick takes long enough to answer that Brian thinks this may have been one of those land mines when he hears, “It’s for everyone in town. Gives me a reason to go see them. Gives them a reason to have to talk to me. I just remembered what everyone liked and started growing those things so every now and then I just haul as much lettuce as I can carry to Tara or I’ll bring Clayton some dill and corn. It’s nothing hard to grow.”

There’s a lot to unpack there, Brian thinks, but it’s a hot day in a way that he couldn’t feel inside the stone cabin—and he’s feeling shakier on his feet than anticipated—so he’s a little preoccupied coming to terms with his own feelings about that as well as feeling Zuko’s urge to flop over and sunbathe.

“So,” he gathers his thoughts against the heat, “You just show up to bring people food they like. Patrick, that is delightful.”

He can hear Patrick’s smirk, “That’s my purpose alright. Spreading joy.”

“Okay, so what are your things? What would people bring to you if it was the other way around?”

“Pizza,” Patrick says immediately with an unguarded longing. “And Charles. Every time I come home and he’s still there, or every time he brings himself to me, I’m the luckiest man alive.”

Sometimes he says things like that and Brian’s not sure if it’s an ingrained figure of speech or a dark joke.

They’re maybe a third of the way down the road and Brian decides it’s definitely time to ditch the cloak since he’s already sweating, pausing to hang it up on a nearby tree and take a moment to affix it with a grabbing motion through the air. At least he’s wearing his denim shorts. “You’re going to stay inside for a while after this,” he says to the cloak, then he takes a swig of water from his canteen and continues, “How long have you had Charles?”

“Years. Clayton had someone drop off some barn kittens one day. I had a pit in my stomach for a couple years thinking he was gonna run off one day and not come back but he must like his cat food more than foraging.”

Brian wants to ask, _can you get a pit in your stomach still?_ , but that’s too much prying and he finds that it’s also too much talking. He focuses on moving forward for a while, stuck in his head trying to figure out whether to take his hat off for the open air or keep it on for the shade.

“Wait,” he says after a few more minutes, stepping off the road to lean against a nearby tree in a crouch. He pulls some water out of his canteen into a wobbling orb near his hand and holds it out to Zuko, who laps at it gratefully for an extended period of time before abruptly turning away with disinterest.

Brian brings the water to his lips and sips the rest of it up from the air, closes the canteen, and forces himself back up and onward on admittedly wobbly legs.

“Is it always this hot?”

“This time of year? Yeah. I like it. Feels warm.”

Defeated, Brian tears his hat off and holds it at his side by the brim, not caring that it skims the dirt road with every downstep. He runs a hand through his hair and cringes at how sweaty he let it get. After only the briefest attempt at trying to gather up the sweat he gives up, drops his hand. Too much effort right now.

To his credit, they make it a good amount further before his steps take on a trudging gait and he veers suddenly and wordlessly back to the trees off the road, dropping artlessly into a squat momentarily before fully sitting on the ground. He repeats his previous actions with the remainder of the canteen water, which sloshes in a barely contained form while Zuko takes his share. This time, while bringing it to his lips, Brian only gets one good gulp before he moves his hands wrong and it falls, splashing his knee on the way to the ground. 

He leans back and sighs heavily. “I should’ve brought mint. ’S hot.”

“You should’ve eaten a meal sometime in the last day and a half.” That's too judgmental, but Brian is too tired to care.

It’s not much longer, he’s pretty sure. “I just need a minute.” Just needs the shade. Listen to the bugs. Breathe deep. Let Zuko flop in the dirt like he’s doing now.

He hears Patrick shuffling around next to him, opens his eyes for just a moment to see when he goes from standing to sitting as well. He’s trying to fight off a strange blend of nausea and shakiness from heat and hunger so his eyes are shut lightly when he feels a sudden, chill in the air next to his arm.

Brian can’t turn his head sharply—boy, his head just feels really gross right now—but he does turn it with languid purpose and stares at Patrick’s hand, held just-short of touching his arm, and nods once.

Patrick touches the back of his hand to Brian’s arm, and it doesn’t get rid of the gnawing hunger but it’s a distracting relief, like stepping into a cool stream.

He exhales a long sigh, then rolls his head toward Patrick’s hand in a wordless request. He feels a couple unsure stutters of motion before the hand tentatively departs his arm and grazes his forehead like a question. He leans into it like an answer.

The threat of shakes and nausea recedes slowly, like a tide going out, before Brian gathers himself to murmur a quiet thanks and Patrick withdraws his hand like it’s spring-loaded the moment he moves his head backward.

It’s still hot out but they’re close to town—and not eating is what got him into this mess—so Brian moves with renewed vigor and Patrick follows as quiet as ever.

 

Simone’s is surprisingly busy compared to its state during Brian’s first visit on his welcoming tour, but Patrick doesn’t hesitate to march right up to the bar and take a seat, his laser-focus on one end suggesting that this might be His Spot.

After Brian joins him, lifting Zuko into his lap as he sits, it’s scarcely a moment before Simone appears behind the bar and walks over with a theatrically surprised expression and all but gasps, “Pat Gill? In _my_ bar? At this time of day?”

He gives her an indulgent grin, and Brian gets the impression that this is a familiar conversation for them. “Nice to see you too. This guy’s about to pass out on me, can we get a pizza and side salad from the back?”

Brian asks, “They make food?” at the same time as Simone says, “Pass out _through_ you,” and turns to call an order through a window behind the counter.

“Not enough people here for there to be separate bars and restaurants,” Patrick explains. “Most people living here work in Samsbrook anyway, no lunch crowd.”

Simone swings back around and deposits a frosty bottle of root beer in front of Brian before leaning on the bar on front of Pat, taking in Brian’s humorless stare and laughing too loud in response. “Your blood sugar’s probably low! I’ll bring you a beer too, just drink that or some water first.”

“His cat might want water also,” Patrick suggests. Brian flinches, unsure if having a cat in here is even allowed.

“Pat, you wanna put on an apron and start pulling your weight around here, be my guest,” Simone says, but she’s already filling a glass with water before she looks at it critically and asks Brian, “Is this gonna work?”

“Yeah, I’ll just put it on the floor.”

“Nah,” she waves her hand to dismiss the suggestion, “He can go on the counter, I make the rules here. We’d probably have people bringing livestock in with them if this was still big farm country.”

Zuko hops up on the table, laps at the water, then walks over to smell Simone’s offered hand and greet her with his face.

When Simone is away tending to other customers, Brian finds that he’s nearly finished his root beer by the time conversation turns back the neighboring town of Samsbrook. “That’s what people here mean when they say they had to go to capital-t Town, right?”

“Yeah, some of them work in Weybridge, but no one comes to Hartdell from outside. We’re just the pit stop between the two. If people didn’t need to get from the train in Weybridge to Samsbrook and back, we wouldn’t even have a name.”

Brian smells food seconds before it arrives and he vows to never settle for plain oatmeal again.

“Nothin’ but deers and secluded hollows or small valleys usually covered with trees here,” Simone says as she sets the food down and finally, finally, pours him a beer. She and Patrick trade looks acknowledging an inside joke, likely her stilted recitation. “We went to school in Samsbrook, there’s no school here, and they _only_ talk about Hartdell to explain its name,” she explains, allowing him on the inside.

Too ravenous to mind his table manners, Brian puts his hand over a mouthful of rustic, lopsided personal pepperoni pizza and asks, “Isn’t that kind of far for school?”

“Yes!” they exclaim in unison, exasperation from a childhood of commuting still fresh in their voices.

“They’re assholes there,” Patrick grouses, “it’s like, a forty minute drive to spend all day around people who think you’re some dumb hick just because you don’t live down the street.”

“We still go there sometimes,” Simone adds, shrugging. “You should come with us next time, see what us dumb hicks do for fun.”

“Thank you,” Brian says, then continues shoveling salad into his mouth and covering it to speak. “Everything is really good!”

She places her hand over her heart, just _so touched_ , then excuses herself to see to other customers again.

They settle into a comfortable silence until the worst of Brian’s hunger subsides and he starts eating at a slower pace. He’s taking a long drink when he notices Patrick, eyes closed, breathing in deep.

“You good?”

“Huh? Yeah, why?”

“You like… you don’t _need_ to breathe, right? But you do, sometimes. You sigh. You took a deep breath just then. Sorry, that's probably a weird question.”

“Nah, it’s fine. I don’t need to, but it’s like… tension and release, you know? And it’s good for reacting. And I can smell, a little bit. It’s pretty weak but it’s there. I was just taking in the pizza.” He turns his attention to drawing lines with his finger down the condensation on Zuko’s glass. He looks somber, or maybe just embarrassed.

“Pat! No moping!” 

Simone passed by just long enough to give that input, slapping the bar in front of Patrick, and grab Brian’s empty salad plate.

He rolls his eyes and huffs, but also sits up a little straighter.

“This beer is really good, too,” Brian pipes up when she returns.

“Thanks! It’s made in-house. Mine and Pat’s special brew.”

Brian raises his eyebrows, “Really? You make beer?”

“Not at all,” Patrick laughs. _Pat_. Simone always calls him Pat.

“He grows some of my barley,” Simone clarifies.

 _Oh, the grain field_. Pat must really want to be in Simone’s good favor if he’s keeping a whole field for her.

“I don’t malt it,” Pat says, qualifying his contribution.

“Well, I’d pay you more if you wanted to.”

“You’re _not_ going to trick me into working for you.”

“Wait, you get paid?” Brian chimes in.

“Of course! I don’t even let him give me a discount.” Simone’s fired up, clearly he’s butted his way into the middle of an ongoing conversation.

Pat shrugs, fails to return her intensity with a quiet, “I told you, I’ve got nothing but time.”

Brian wants so badly to pry, or snoop, or investigate these new mysteries about his already-mysterious roommate, but he’d been so open and familiar since they got here only to withdraw into himself when they started talking about anything personal so he can’t possibly begin to ask what a ghost needs money for. 

They chat idly for a few more minutes while Brian finishes the last of his pizza and when he reaches for his wallet, Pat stops him by setting a hand on his arm and then pulling it back just as quickly.

“Put it on my tab,” he says, in an exaggerated _cool_ voice, and heads for the door.

“Oh, you have a _tab_ now?” Simone calls after, giving an incredulous _this guy_ look to Brian before he follows.

 

They walk together in the morning or afternoon sometimes—Brian with his new fishing pole out to the bridge, Pat stopping and breaking off not far past the barley field to double back and tend to the grains. He always asks how long Brian thinks he’ll be gone, and he’s always near the house when he returns even though he goes off on his own sometimes otherwise.

Both Zuko and Charles are overjoyed on the days when Brian can’t catch anything big enough to be worth preparing for himself.

Every day Brian brings his radio out with him, and every day he is heartbroken anew. He’s done everything he can think of to try to enhance the signal but the technical aspects are beyond what he knows how to work with.

He’s gone to Simone’s near closing a couple of times, first with Patrick and then alone, because she’ll let him use her radio while she’s closing up and doesn’t mind that he sings along—even joins in sometimes. Pat steadfastly refuses, but Brian thinks he caught him laughing once when they were singing dramatically at one another.

It’s only a little embarrassing, how effortless the walk to and from town is now that he’s fed and hydrated.

Pat keeps bringing herbs and vegetables in and leaving them in the kitchen. Not an overwhelming amount, but definitely a _deliberate_ amount. Sometimes he lingers nearby while Brian is cooking, breathing in deeply, trying to be subtle about it.

Brian’s begun really working on his thesis in earnest. He’d already started a little, back in academy, but he’s buckling down now. 

“If I can spell the sound from my ukulele while I’m playing, I can play a duet with myself,” he explained to Pat when he was first starting. He probably owed him an explanation for why things were about to get a lot noisier. “Not specifically for ukuleles, you could apply it to anything, that’s just what I have.”

It’s a lot to keep track of, with both hands moving, trying to figure out how and where and when to get the sound. He spends full hours plucking single notes and feeling around in the ensuing silence.

He practices with other sounds too, drumming his fingers on the table and nodding along with the percussive taps, humming sustained notes and then coughing when gently prodding at the sound of his own voice irritates his throat.

Even when he’s not strictly working on his thesis, he’s enjoying how loudly musical he can be here. He was never _shy_ about it at home, or even in academy, but there had been other people busy doing other things in his immediate vicinity. Jonah had been unrepentantly loud right there with him, but sometimes it was during the night and they had neighbors and those neighbors had very creative and magical means of making their lives miserable if they did not shut the fuck up.

Pat doesn’t seem to mind. He bobs his head along sometimes, when Brian is singing in the house or across the garden or coming back from fishing. He doesn’t mind when conversation segues into snatches of lyric before coming back around to being a response. His patience seems like deep well that Brian worries less and less about running dry as time goes on and Pat becomes more reassured that he’s not going to be driven away from his home.

“One year.”

“One year.”

He’d brought records when he moved here, partly because they’re his belongings so he had to bring them or ship them home, and partly because he’d hoped—knowing it was unlikely—that there might be a record player. He takes an album out one night and experiments with it gently, trying to feel along the grooves with his hands like a needle, but once he starts to get somewhere with it he gets the acute feeling that he’s going to scratch it if he pushes any further. He sighs, unsurprised, and puts it away and satisfies himself by singing his way through its contents.

Mid-song, he bends and scoops up Zuko, cradling him so they’re eye to eye while he croons, “Pack up all my care and woe, here I go, singing low.” Zuko stares at him wide-eyed and unmoving, waiting for this moment to pass. Brian releases him a couples lines later, instructing him to make the bed and light the light, to throw his arms in the air and singing to the heavens, “Zuko, bye bye!”

He didn’t recall Pat being around for that particular session, but he must’ve been loud enough anyway because he catches him humming _Bye Bye Blackbird_ while watering the garden a couple days later and freezes, doing an abrupt about-face and shaking whatever that stirred up out of his head.

 

Though Pat promises they’re there, Brian has yet to see a single deer.

“Look at what those assholes are doing! Every year!” Pat is angrily shaking a half-eaten head of lettuce and Brian ought to be rewarded for keeping a straight face.

“Why not put up a fence?”

“Can’t. Too much pressure.”

Pat’s begun using this as shorthand to explain any time a task requires more strength than he can use without piercing his form. He makes a face like it’s uncomfortable, whenever Charlie startles and kicks _into_ him in his haste to get elsewhere, or when he accidentally fills a water bucket too much and the handle drops right through his fingers.

“I could help?”

“It’s alright, that’s not what you’re here for.”

Brian wonders if that’s what Pat does at night, stand watch over the garden or the field like a glowing scarecrow.

 

He’s asleep one night, maybe a week later, when Zuko startles awake and that startles him awake too from across the room. It's a downside of having a familiar. Knowing he won’t be able to shrug it off, he takes a drink of water and considers the persistent urge he feels to step outside and check if Pat’s watching the garden. Maybe keep him company until he’s tired again.

Shrugging on his cloak for the first time since he nearly got sick walking with Pat, Brian steps barefoot out into the liminal summer night. Crickets sing all around him and when he looks up, the sky is clear and bright under a nearly-full moon.

Rounding the side of the house, he sees the garden empty and is too tired to consider the disappointment he feels. He moves as though in a dream and just lets the feeling wash over him gently as he decides to try the barley field.

The shed door is open when he walks by, and he stops just past it and rocks back on his feet, then retraces his steps to make sure Charles isn’t inside and shut it.

With the door open wide, Patrick is framed by moonlight as he sits sleeping against the back wall of the shed.

“You sleep?” Brian says in soft shock before he can catch himself.

Pat opens his eyes blearily, lifts his head, nods once.

“Why- I didn’t… Have you been out here every night?”

Watching him carefully in the way he so often does, Patrick nods again. He shows no sign of intention to speak or react beyond this, just looks at Brian and waits to see what comes next.

Brian stares back for a small eternity, too tired to fully process this. He’s surprised-awake, but it feels like he’s sleepwalking with the moonlight and the Pat-light and the warm, still air all around and between them.

“This is dumb,” he says. “Sleep inside.”

One more nod, then Pat stands and they look at each other for a beat before Brian lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding and turns toward the house. He’s a few steps away when he hears the shed door shut and he’s inside and hanging up his cloak when Pat shuts the house door behind him as well.

He’s on the cusp of starting to worry about something when Pat sits with his back against the door and closes his eyes again. 

Brian crawls back beneath his covers, realizes too late his feet are dirty, and decides he’ll deal with it in the morning.

“Night,” Patrick says quietly from only so many feet away.

“G’night,” Brian says from his bed, the waver in his voice surely borne of exhaustion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [ Amazing art of Brian the Jorts Witch by @keepitquick!](https://keepitquick.tumblr.com/post/185826614583/the-mental-image-of-witchs-hat-plus-denim-shorts)
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> [ Flawless art of ghost Pat in his blue glowing glory by @fishstrikesagain](https://fishstrikesagain.tumblr.com/post/186403143911)


	4. Fall I

Summer slips quietly into fall while the witch house residents are too occupied to pay it much mind. The now-golden barley field bows its heads to the sun and Pat retrieves a scythe from the shed to harvest it over several long days. Brian sees him once at sunset, a pale blue reaper shouldering golden grain against the vibrant sky, and feels grateful that he is not a plant.

Countless hours spent studiously humming, tapping, and plucking at nylon strings and empty air finally yield a breakthrough and Brian scoops a startled Zuko into a spinning hug and then sits him down and shows off his newfound ability to tap the body of his ukulele in a simple beat, then wind the rhythm around with his thumb to loop continuously. He’s only able to pluck a couple of notes before it all comes unraveled, but it was _there_.

He runs out to the field to demonstrate to Pat, eager to have a witness to corroborate his progress, and Pat leans against his scythe and patiently listens while it takes a couple of attempts and rewards Brian with an encouraging smile and a, “Fuck yeah!” 

Brian practices a bit longer sitting out by the field, spending most of his time carefully watching his own hands and not the vague movements of Pat’s shoulders beneath his shirt while he continues with his rhythmic, sweeping swings .

They carry the day’s harvest back together, pile it up in the shed, and head to Simone’s to celebrate.

“You should’ve brought your ukulele,” Simone tells Brian when she brings his not-root beer, “I want to see what you’re talking about next time.”

Pat doesn’t really get to _celebrate_ necessarily, he just rests his arm on the bar and hammers out details with Simone for clearing out the nearly-overflowing shed. “Should be done in a couple days, if you want to swing by then.”

“Afternoon okay? I’ll close for lunch so I can pick up and hand off same day if I can.”

“Does _everyone_ here own a truck?” Brian’s struck with sudden curiosity.

To his surprise, they both laugh hard. Patrick at least has the decency to try to hide it behind the back of his hand while Simone unabashedly tosses her head back and cackles. 

“Only the commuters usually have smaller cars, city boy.” Simone explains, “But locals all have jobs that just boil down to hauling things. I haul Pat’s barley away to be malted and haul it back to brew and haul kegs here.” She turns to Pat, “And, according to tradition, now I need to haul your ass to Samsbrook for some debauchery.”

“Oooh, debauchery!” Brian croons and leans in, intrigued.

“If you call people-watching and drinking in moderation _debauchery_ , then sure,” Pat’s grinning when he says it, in a better mood than usual but still playing the straight man.

“This year could be a game-changer.” Now Simone’s turned to Brian, leaning in with a grave expression. “Can you drive?”

“Um, yeah? It’s been a few years but I have a license.”

She whoops victoriously and punches her fist in the air while Pat turns his head into his hand and shakes it despairingly, though his smile is still visible.

“Can Pat not drive?”

“I can,” he answers for himself, “technically speaking, anyway. It’s just not _safe_.” The look he gives Simone indicates that this is a well-worn discussion. “If the car crashes, I’m gonna get shot right out of it and then no one’s driving.” 

“We got Clayton to play designated driver a couple times but it seemed like he was just being too nice to turn us down,” Simone adds. “And I haven’t exhausted your favors yet.”

“Not yet,” Brian agrees with a warning lilt. “Yeah, I’ll drive.”

“Are you both free on Monday? It’s slow enough, I can have Jenna run this place.”

Pat turns to Brian, waiting for him to answer for them, and he alarms himself when he says, “I actually have no idea what day it is.”

They both have a good laugh at his expense again, and come to an understanding that on an immediate level, days of the week only affect Simone.

“I can’t wait to get you on the schedule and bring you down to my level,” she says while smiling threateningly at Patrick, who can only roll his eyes as she finally steps away to settle tabs from other tables.

“Why does she want you to work for her so badly?” Brian’s down to the end of his glass, feeling warm and loose, bouncing a spark between two fingers lazily.

“She’s just trying to help in her own way,” Pat shrugs. “It’s a joke, but it’s not. She’d love to be able to boss me around a little _too_ much.” 

They leave late and the walk home seems particularly short, Brian singing and dancing to and fro and Pat laughing with him quietly in between, patiently refusing to partake in anything but conversation. 

“Hey, how’d Simone get all the barley before if she didn’t know where you lived?” Brian says and stops dancing abruptly, question coming to him on a delayed reaction.

“Oh, it’s so dumb,” Pat laughs at himself a little. “I wheelbarrowed it into town. Little bit at a time. It took me days, the barley’s not heavy but the wheelbarrow is so I couldn’t add a lot to it and still move it.”

“Why not just tell her where you lived?”

He’s quiet long enough Brian starts to worry that he’s found another landmine topic. 

“She’d check up on me. People would know where to look if they didn’t see me for a while.”

The somber tonal whiplash sobers Brian up enough not to stumble, tipsy, into this metaphorical wall that has appeared between them.

“You’re a mysterious man, Pat Gill.”

There’s a stutter in Patrick’s step and he says, “Didn’t know you knew my name,” and takes a few long strides ahead to open the door for Brian.

“Well, yeah,” Brian responds, wonders if this was something that was also supposed to be a secret, “Someone said it at one point.”

By the time he collapses onto his mattress, Patrick is already asleep leaned up against the wall—Brian can’t see how that could possibly be comfortable but that’s how he always ends up—hand resting on Charles’ back where it had stilled mid-pet.

Come Monday morning, they get their first hint of chilly weather. Brian thinks he can manage another week or so of wearing shorts, but he’s never spent much time working on forecasting so he’ll just have to learn by trial and error what the seasons are like here.

He’s plucking chords idly, half-singing half-humming without any attempt at magic behind it when Pat walks past his line of sight and he does a double-take.

“You changed your shirt?” 

Every new revelation about the world of ghosts leaves him vaguely ashamed of his ignorance, and he feels sheepish as soon as he’s asked.

Thankfully, Pat laughs at him. “Thought I should dress for the occasion.” He pops open the top button of the checkered long sleeve, fingers threatening on the second, and tosses his hair back. “Think I’m better off without?”

“Please, I can only handle so many muscles!” This seems safe to ask about, then. “Can you explain it though? It’s like you just got a new shirt to materialize.”

“I’ve got a collection in the corner,” he gestures vaguely to where Charles is napping in a sunbeam. “People can’t see them if they’re not being worn. Changing them doesn’t make a difference for me, sometimes I just want a change.”

Nevertheless, Brian walks over to the corner, staring hard and trying to feel for any indication of objects. “Wow… So where do you get your secret clothes from?”

“Around. There’s no good answer, it’s not like there’s a store. I had to find things that fit better—I wasn’t done growing—so I spent a while looking around. I cleaned out Hartdell a long time ago.”

They can hear a car approaching and Brian pulls his hat on, gathering his cloak in his arms just in case. “Where are they _from_ though?”

“They got left behind. Just other ghosts who got tired of them or disappeared. Anyway, people die wearing all sorts of things.” 

Signaling the end of this conversation, Pat goes to Charles and crouches beside him, scratching under his chin and speaking so soft Brian strains hear snippets like, “I’m…back late tonight, okay?” and, “—good and take…house,” and, “I promise… back, please don’t go anywhere.”

Brian turns to Zuko and they make eye contact before he feels how resolutely disinterested in going anywhere his familiar truly is, punctuated by his turning away and sprawling out further on the mattress. 

“Come oooon,” Simone yells, presumably still inside her truck, so on they go.

It was a snug ride, scooted up against the door as far as he could go to maintain the illusion of personal space with three adults seated in one row, but Brian enjoyed singing along to the radio once they got onto a highway and reception was clear enough to do so. 

It was only a little uncomfortable, holding brief conversations across Pat, but he didn’t appear to mind and even nodded along to snippets of songs here and there. Simone seemed at ease, so Brian took this as a cue to try to do the same.

Samsbrook was a far cry from the city his academy was in—smaller than home, even—but as promised, it easily dwarfed Hartdell. It was unexpected, how surprised he was to see so many other people simply walking about leisurely.

Simone parks near a busy street and they meander from shop to shop. Brian ducks into a music store to buy new strings, Simone gets a pastry from a cafe, Patrick follows without complaint but also without any particular interest until Brian takes them into a magic supply shop.

“I’ve never been in here before,” Pat mentions after they step in, he and Simone struggling to take in all of the tools crowding the shelves and thick bunches of dried herbs hanging from the ceiling. “I didn’t think we were allowed?”

“Oh, it’s fine,” Brian says, “There’s not really any reason to come in here if you can’t use anything, though.”

It’s interesting, seeing everything through their eyes. This is old-hat for him, growing up in a witch family and going to an academy. He’d taken school friends with him a few times when he was younger, but he hadn’t thought about how there were plenty of adults for whom this was all foreign. 

Simone peers into an empty brass cauldron with a soft, “Ooh,” and laughs when it amplifies her voice. “Do you make potions?”

“Not really, I can do some basics but I didn’t specialize in them.” 

Truthfully, there’s not much he needs. It’s been a strange transition though—surrounded by magic for years, then alone with it in the woods—and the shop brings him a small sense of comfort. There are no white-cloaked academy students here, only the woman who likely owns the shop given her black thesis-graduate hat and cloak. He grabs a jar of cinnamon and a pouch of cat treats from the front counter and carries out the transaction while Pat and Simone marvel quietly at sets of runes and crystal balls and cards and mysterious jars.

“That was so cool!” Simone says in an excited exhale as soon as they exit, “We have to come here every time from now on! What’d you get?”

“Nothing exciting. Or necessary.” _I feel awkward if I don’t buy something in a store that small._ “Cinnamon can enhance a lot of basic spells and the stuff they sell there has been prepared so it’s easier to… grab onto, I guess. And I bought cat treats, but those are normal.”

“Do all witches have cats?” Pat asks, and he seems more present and interested in engaging with them than he did before.

“No, not everyone even has a familiar, but a lot do. My mom has a dog.”

He regales them with stories about Moose while Simone leads them to a bookstore, a proper two-story one with sections far-flung enough that they split up for a while before meandering back together again. Brian finds a book on foraging for mushrooms and Simone ends up with several novels. Pat shrugs and says he skimmed a few books, but leaves—as with every other store—without any purchases.

In the early evening, after dropping their bags at the car—Brian retrieving his cloak now that it’s decidedly chilly—and eating dinner in a comically high-backed booth that make it feel more like a hidden fort, they find themselves at a bar. 

“This is really where you want to be on your day off?” Brian asks.

“Of course! I don’t have to do any work here! I get to enjoy it the way everyone else normally does.”

“You should give yourself more breaks,” Pat says.

“You should let me teach you how to run the bar so I might be able to trust someone enough to take them,” Simone counters.

Pat rolls his eyes, but he also smiles, slouches, relaxes.

They pass time recounting their school days here, filling Brian in when conversation leans too heavily on the context of their shared history, and he tells them in turn about academy life.

“I was wondering, actually, why you don’t just ride a broom everywhere,” Simone admits, returning from the bar with another beer for both of them, though she’s already lapped him at least once.

“Ah.” _Shit_. “Well, it’s pretty difficult.” _I failed twice_. “I tried to learn but it’s just not the type of thing I’m good at, which makes it even more dangerous than usual, being up off the ground like that.”

“How’s it different from your normal stuff?” Pat asks, hunched over the table a bit like he’s trying to make himself smaller and more inconspicuous. They haven’t seen any other ghosts today.

“I don’t do a lot of intangible work. Even getting a breeze going isn’t a beginner spell,” he’s tipsy, talking with his hands, “so the amount of precision and focus you need to move and lift and propel-“ 

Simone yelps in surprise as Brian smacks his nearly-full glass over, beer flooding the table and running off over Pat’s seat.

“ _Oh no,_ I’m so sorry Pat, I-“

Pat shrugs, says, “It doesn’t stick,” and Brian notices that he’s right. It’s just running right off him without any absorption.

“I don’t want to wooork,” Simone whines, but before Brian can stop her she’s marching deliberately to the front to get towels.

The beer keeps dripping off the table. The silence seeps in. 

“I’m still sorry…”

“Really, it’s fine. Makes rain easy to deal with, too.”

Brian sighs, begins halfheartedly trying to spell the beer back into the glass but it’s a lot, and it’s spread out, and he’s still loose-limbed. Looking toward the bar, Simone appears to have lost the plot since she’s empty-handed and chatting leisurely with a bartender. He pokes and pushes and pulls at the air like he’s fussing with ball of clay.

Something feels strange. Thin invisible threads, curlicued around others, more motion to them than normal. Curious, quite forgetting to worry about the quiet stretching between him and Patrick, he gathers these carefully. It’s easier when he knows what to look for, and they follow his slightly-exaggerated movements with an unexpected elasticity.

It helps to have a task to worry at with his nimble fingers.

He pulls what he’s got into his core momentarily and then sits up with a start, withdrawing them immediately before he lets any slip loose. He whips his head up to look at Patrick, instantly sobered.

“Can I try something on you?”

Not sobered enough to gather his thoughts into anything that isn’t vague and creepy.

And yet, Pat gives him a curious look and says, “Sure.”

Brian gathers all of the remaining wispy threads that he can find, the ones that yield no response in any solid form—they don’t even disturb the liquid when lifted—and watches carefully while he moves them forward into Pat’s chest and holds.

Patrick’s eyes widen and he does a double-take between Brian’s steadied hand and his own torso. He looks Brian in the eyes, tilts his head slightly, licks his lips and opens— shuts—opens them. He runs a hand through his hair and then brings it forward in front of his face, laughing incredulously. And then his smile drops.

And he looks scared. And he looks hopeful.

“What…,” is all he can get out, like anything more specific is going to vanish what he’s afraid to believe is happening.

“I think I got the alcohol? And I think I put it in you?” _No don’t laugh that was dumb as fuck but focus!_ “I can’t explain well right now… I’m not drunk, but I’m not used to having to explain. But… is that what I did?”

Pat gives short, sharp nods. Licks his lips again. “I think so.”

“Is it okay?”

“I think so.”

“I’m gonna let go.”

“Okay.”

“Still there?”

Pat closes his eyes a moment, then nods. “I think so.”

Brian sits back in his chair, trying to assess the situation. The shock seems to be wearing off, at least, and Pat is _smiling_ , even if it’s a small smile, so this is probably okay.

“I got towels!” Simone announces, oblivious to what’s transpired.

Brian helps her mop up the mess. Patrick watches them and dissolves into giggles.

That’s enough to tip off Simone, and she gives him a critical stare and asks, “What’s going on?”

“Brian got me drunk!” Pat says, laughing in disbelief again.

“ _What?_ ” She’s looking at Brian now, confused and intrigued and ready to be angry if need be.

“I can’t explain well.” _Better to get that disclaimer out of the way._ “I got the alcohol from the beer and I gave it to Pat. Magic is… magic is weird, you guys.”

They tilt their heads and shrug in some approximation of _yeah, can’t argue with that_.

“Did you ever drink with us before?” Simone’s sitting again, turning her focus entirely to Pat.

“Yeah, couple times. This isn’t as much, I’m pretty sure. Been a _while,_ though. Obviously.” 

“Does it feel the same?”

“I think so? It’s not a lot. I can’t taste it but I feel it. Fuck, Simone, it’s been seventeen _years_ , I don’t know! This is so cool!” He sits back in his chair and stares up at the ceiling.

“Great!” Simone says and claps her hands together. She sits back also, satisfied enough with his answers to stop her interrogation.

After several seconds Pat leans forward again, suddenly, and asks Simone, “Can I get something else?” Then he turns to Brian, realizes this is a question for him, too.

“I can try,” Brian says cautiously, not wanting to set him up for disappointment.

“You got it!” 

Simone leaves with the towels and returns promptly with two glasses of whiskey and a cup of water for Brian, who’s confused for a moment until he remembers he’s driving home.

It’s another moment before he realizes they’re both watching him, waiting to see what he does.

This time it’s different, definitely, but it’s also easier. More threads, smaller area. It still takes some time to gather them up, winding a figure-eight between his thumb and pinky. He feels self-conscious in a way that’s unusual with magic, having Simone and Pat watching him so attentively, but he’s buzzed enough to push past it. 

He looks at Pat, who nods, and he moves the these threads into him and releases again.

Pat grins wider, laughs incredulously. Simone whoops and toasts Pat’s glass, still sitting full on the table, before drinking from her glass and throwing her arms around both their shoulders companionably.

“Brian, you’re a _game changer_ ,” She says, jostling him excitedly. 

Pat shakes loose from her arm to card both his hands through his hair, staring upward in unguarded wonder.

“I’ve never done this before!” Brian says. It’s important that they know this—to temper their expectations or to acknowledge his new skill, he’s not sure which.

“I feel kind of warm?” Pat says with a touch of disbelief, getting to his feet. “I’m gonna get some air.”

As soon as he’s out the door, Simone’s turning around to check the bar again and makes some excuse about wanting to talk shop with whoever’s working there before she’s also up and gone.

Alone, Brian fishes a small notebook and a pencil from a pocket inside his cloak and sets to making vague notes and sketches in a code that is not secret but is likely unintelligible to anyone else. He adds a list of keywords to branch off of later in the bottom right corner of the page, each with an increasing number of question marks after it.

_compendium!_  
mint?  
peppers??  
content dif feel???  
storage????? 

They’re both still gone when he puts his notes away. Simone appears to be in rapt conversation and has actually reseated herself at the bar.

With nothing to focus his eyes or hands on, Brian feels the weight of every second spent alone in a crowded room until the discomfort propels him out the front door. 

He expects to find Pat leaned up against the front of the building and is confused when he sees that space is empty. He finds him quickly though—across the street, instead—slouched forward on a bench in front of a fountain, visible even outside the lamplight. It’s too far to call out just yet, so he really means to just take a few steps first, but the words catch in his throat when he notices it’s all wrong.

Pat’s got his face in his hands and he’s not _shaking_ , really, but his shoulders hitch ever so slightly now and then. He must hear the scuff of shoes when Brian stops short in his approach, and turns to face him with a heretofore unseen open expression.

He’s _crying_ , that much is obvious and enough to unstick Brian and bring him the rest of the way over, apologies tripping over each other to escape his mouth. 

“Oh, fuck—I’m _so sorry_ —I can try to pull it back out of you. Or I can, um, I can get Simone. Fuck, I should just leave you alone, I’m sorry.”

Pat shakes his head mutely, wipes his eyes on the back of the hand though there don’t actually appear to be any tears on his face. He pats the bench next to him, taking in deep, shuddering breaths to try to compose himself while Brian hesitantly takes a seat, giving him as much space as possible.

They sit quietly together, staring at the fountain. Brian poaches himself in guilt and anxiety, growing more tense every time he hears a sound from the otherwise conspicuously quiet Patrick—sounds like he’s trying to breathe out slowly more and inhale sharply less. 

Brian buckles under the pressure and turns to apologize, but gets cut off once he opens his mouth.

“I didn’t know I could feel anything new,” Pat murmurs, barely audible over the water. 

“Sorry I made you find out you’re a sad drunk.”

“What? No. I’m not _sad_ , I’m overwhelmed. It’s… a lot. I don’t think I’m even technically drunk.” He pauses, pushes his glasses up and paws at his face again, runs a hand through his hair. “I’ve been feeling next-to-nothing for longer than I was alive. Feeling anything different is incredible.”

The weight of this confession hangs between them and Brian averts his eyes, watching the fountain again. 

“I didn’t know ghosts could cry,” He says, offering to redirect the conversation to his perpetual ignorance rather than the vulnerable emotions he’s intruded upon.

He hears Pat give a soft _hah_ , and smiles.

“It’s not… it’s weird. No tears but it’s still a good release of tension.”

“Like breathing.”

“Yeah, like breathing.”

Patrick turns to face him then, deliberately. “Look, I can’t… This is a big fucking deal for me. I was an asshole, I am an _asshole_ , and you did this and I can’t…”

Brian feels his face get hot, isn’t sure how to negotiate the disparity between how easily he did this and how much it appears to have meant. 

“It’s fine, it was no problem. Really. Any time. And hey, you’re not an asshole. I’ve seen those veggies in the kitchen. And you’re sharing your house with me so, hey? Even?”

“Even…” He doesn’t sound convinced, but his voice is more level.

“One year.”

“One year.”

For a while they sit in companionable silence. Brian gets fidgety then and reaches out from his cloak, feeling around vaguely while keeping his hands close to himself.

“Is it okay if I see if I can feel it in you still? No! Not like… I don’t have to touch through you. Just the air close to you. I just need to get closer, I can’t feel anything from here.”

“Go for it,” Pat says, straightens his posture.

Brian leans in near his chest because even though there’s nothing to _see_ , it feels necessary for focus when searching for something meticulous. People are complicated. Ghosts seem like they’re complicated, too. Pat is complicated in a way that’s separate from magic. Brian can’t find what he’s looking for with cursory, cautious gestures, moving in a line from chest to stomach, and he’s about to shrug it off and explain as much when-

“Patrick Gill!” Simone has arrived, unashamed to be hollering in public at night, and Brian bolts upright immediately. “If Brian wipes any fucking ectoplasm off his face I am going to-“

“ _Simone_!” Pat yelps and whips around to fix her with a scolding look that melts into fond irritation when she laughs uproariously in response.

Brian scoots to the middle of the bench to make room for her, gives Pat a brief questioning look, though he can’t tell if the terse shake he gets in response is _no_ or _I’m not going to answer that_.

“It’s nice out, let’s keep moving! We have to walk through Griffin’s Landing, it’s tradition.”

Simone sat for only a moment before she gets right back up, walking ahead before either can respond.

“Wait, I need to go-“

“I settled the tab. Pay me back later. Come on!”

They catch up with her easily, and Pat’s back to smiling and reminiscing for the span of a few blocks until they reach an old wooden playground and Simone plants her feet firmly in the grass and throws her arms out in a grandiose gesture and announces, “Griffin’s landing!”

Pat laughs, then runs up the length of a see-saw and gets a little further on it than it looks like he should before it tips down the other side and he runs off.

“Why’s this park called Griffin’s Landing?”

“Oh, it’s not,” Simone tells him while Pat’s back on the see-saw trying to find his balance in the center. “Our friend Griffin—when we were in school—tried to do a cool jump off the swings and ate shit.”

“Griffin’s landing,” He understands.

“Griffin’s landing,” She confirms.

“Griffin’s landing!” Pat cheers, fists raised high in the air, balanced on the see-saw.

When they’re all sitting on the swing set later, Pat announces, “It’s wearing off.”

Brian leans back and kicks out his legs stares at the stars and breathes a sigh of relief. “You have no idea how good it is to hear that. I didn’t think through how I was gonna get it back if I had to.”

“Feel around his insides,” Simone offers through a yawn.

Pat winces and curls in on himself a bit. “Please do not.”

“Fiiiine.”

“Is it time to head home?” Brian’s feeling clear-headed, abuzz only with excitement over his new magic, eager to make more notes and maybe even get to _research_.

“Yeaaah.”

The radio’s quiet on the way home, just enough volume for Brian to pick out the words but low enough for Simone to doze against the passenger window. Pat doesn’t converse, just quietly directs him when he needs to turn or change lanes or exit.

They drop Simone off at home, realizing the problem with this arrangement entirely too late, and promise to bring her truck back in the morning. She gives each of them side hug and a half-asleep, “Good night,” and disappears with her new books into her house.

The cats are awake when they arrive, Charles ambling over to wind around Pat’s legs and Zuko giving Brian a slow blink of acknowledgement from approximately the same spot he’d been laying in when they left.

“Do you min- if I shtay up a little late to rea-?” Brian asks, toothbrush in his mouth. He’s already pulling several books out from where he’s got them lined up along the wall.

“Hm? No, you’re good,” Pat says, already settling in against the wall, adjusting his legs to Charles’ satisfaction.

Brian turns the lamp off anyway, spells himself a ball of light to read by, and makes notes long into the night until he’s too tired to hold the spell any longer.


	5. Fall II

“Those ones are good,” Pat says, pointing to a cluster of mushrooms several feet off the trail.

Brian flips through his book aimlessly, adrift amongst so very many pages of fungi. “What are they?”

“Dunno. Used to get them as a kid, though.”

“Not poison?”  
“Not poison. Probably.”

He passes the book over to Pat and gathers the mushrooms up in a burlap bag, yawning behind his hand when he stands upright again.

Against his better judgement, he’s been up late almost every night either practicing his magic quietly or reading into new research. And then, well, it’s difficult to sleep in with so much of the natural world awake and loud surrounding the witch house. Even more so with Zuko hungry for breakfast. 

They continue along with scattered findings and Brian keeps himself moving forward in a sleepy daze, shuffling through mud and damp leaves, until Pat snaps him out of it.

“Hey, come down this path. There’s usually more over this way. There’s some big logs, mushrooms love that.”

“I’ve never come down this way,” Brian says through another yawn. “Where’s it go?”

“Some other houses, eventually. Nothing exciting. There’s a lot of woods between here and there.”

Pat picks up a stick and taps it along the ground as they’re walking, carving dashed lines through the thin layer of fallen leaves. 

“How’s the magic going?”

“It’s going. I hope. I think I mentioned I’m not as good with intangible stuff?” Brian sighs. “There’s the strings at least, on the ukulele. There’s an origin to touch.”

“Well, you’ve got a while, right?” Pat points the stick at a few mushrooms in the distance.

“One year. Less, now, obviously. How are you so much better at this?”

“I’ve been doing this forever, my parents used to send me out looking for them since its free food. And probably just to keep me out of their hair for a while. Now I just bring them around for others. Gives me something to do.”

“Oh shit, am I dipping into everyone else’s free mushroom stash?” Brian hesitates a moment, but keeps putting mushrooms in his bag.

“Nah, it’s fine. There’s more where those came from.” He cards his fingers through his hair with the hand not holding the stick. “I bring them plenty else, I don’t _have_ to bring those at all. Or anything. Just want an excuse to talk sometimes.”

He wonders if touching his hair is a nervous habit for Pat. He does it so often that it seems unlikely, but maybe he’s just often nervous. He doesn’t realize until he’s already doing it that he’s got his own hand running through his hair.

“Well, now you have to put up with talking to me _all_ the time. And you get free concerts daily.”

Brian finds one of the aforementioned big logs—a real picturesque mossy one—and sits, picking up a yellowed leaf from beside him to twirl in his hand, sending lingering raindrops flying off. Pat joins him, leaning forward and aimlessly weaving his stick between the leaves in front of him.

There’s been rain the last few days but it’s clear and crisp now, light streaming down through the remaining leaves and the damp air that clings to the woods.

“I was relieved when you started singing at Simone’s and not just here,” Pat says.

“Why?”

“I thought… I could never sing around people like that, not when it’s so quiet and no one else is singing. So if you were doing it around me, maybe you didn’t see me as counting as a person.”

Brian opens his mouth to object, turns to face Pat for the first time since they sat, but gets cut off.

“I know it’s not true. Sometimes people are just shitty. And I’m glad you’re not… Turns out you’re just a show-off.”

Pat faces him also with a shit-eating grin and Brian rolls his eyes.

“I’m an _artist_ , Patrick. I can’t deprive the world of my talent. They’ll be starving for it by the time I’m done here as it is.”

“You’re lucky I like my privacy enough not to sell out your location.”

“You could just be writing a memoir, planning to really cash in. Think of all the exclusive content you’ll have. Oh, actually, I need to go to the library soon. Wanna come?”

“Hmm,” Pat looks up while he thinks. “‘Kay. Sure. I’ll write about how you went to the library and borrowed all these books on erotic farming.”

“I appreciate that you won’t be embellishing any stories.”

A breeze rustles through the leaves and Brian shivers and stands, rubbing his hands down his arms under the cloak. He’ll need to switch to his quilted winter cloak before long. Pat stands too and they begin to make their way back.

“Hey, Pat,” _Seems like a good time to ask_. “What do you need money for anyway?”

“Gonna buy the house,” Pat answers, locking his fingers behind his head and leaning back to gaze upward. “If Tara lets me. Haven’t asked. Didn’t know anyone would ever use it again so I might need to save up more than I thought, and faster, but I’ll get there.”

“Sorry,” Brian says, quiet through the stab of guilt.

“You’re good. One year.”

“One year.”

It’s hard to focus this late at night. Brian’s been reading the same page over and over again but his mind wanders away every time and he’s yet to make it to the bottom without his eyes drifting up and over to Pat, asleep against the wall looking soft with his mouth opened slightly.

He sighs and shuts the book in defeat, flicks his wrist and the ball of light winks out of existence. As he slouches down into bed, he pulls the covers up over his face and sighs once more for good measure.

He has a crush on Pat, of course. This has been in the back of his mind for a few weeks and ignoring it isn’t working. It doesn’t come as a surprise, just an admission, and he feels some scattered butterflies set free in his stomach but even those are too tired to do much.

How could this not be the inevitable conclusion he’s reached? Patrick is _handsome_ and _tall_ and _mysterious_ and can really swing a scythe and he’s sweet with cats and—

 _I am here for my thesis_ , he reminds himself. _We are getting along well because we have to be. He didn’t really want me here to begin with and even getting this friendly with him is shocking. I’m leaving at the end of spring. I am not going to make things weird._

As tired as he is, he falls asleep almost immediately, though his dreams are less restful than he’d have hoped for after that pep talk.

The heavy mist blanketing the town transforms predictably into undeniable raindrops while they’re walking down the road.

Brian’s been waiting for this moment and deploys his umbrella with surprising alacrity considering the general sluggishness with which he’s been moving today. He coughs into his elbow and sniffles lightly, still trying to drag himself into full wakefulness.

Beside him, Pat keeps up in companionable silence, unperturbed by the rain that runs in rivulets down his body without clinging anywhere.

Pressure builds on Brian’s conscience with every step but he can’t classify it. Either it’s guilt or it’s suspicion that he’s trying to mask his own ulterior motives.

He steps decisively sideways and lifts the small umbrella up to accommodate Patrick underneath, keeping his eyes determinedly forward.

“Oh, you don’t have to. I’m fine.”

“I feel like a dick keeping dry while you’re getting completely soaked.”

“I mean, you know I’m not, right?”

“Yeah. It still feels rude, though.”

Pat stays under the umbrella, bumping elbows and shoulders several times while they walk before Brian moves his arm out into him deliberately in an offer.

“Allow me to escort you, my good sir,” he says. _Don’t push it_ , he tells himself.

Pat laughs and hooks his hand easily into the crook of Brian’s elbow. He affects an accent to chastise him, saying, “So forward, Mr. Gilbert! This scandal will be about town by supper.”

They riff off each other a while and Brian gathers up some raindrops and bounces them off his fingers and orbits them around each other and feels hot when the praise he’s angling for hits and washes over him like a wave.

Tara’s on the phone when they get to The Municipal Building and waves them on to the library with only a quick hello and a promise to retrieve any mail Brian has received before he leaves. 

Pat had dropped his arm once they got to the first crossroad into town but Brian can still feel the cold weight of his hand.

The stairs down to the library creak, their carpeting worn flat and greyed with age. It is—as promised—a humble collection, but it retains the general smell of a library, if a bit mustier than usual.

“I almost didn’t expect there to be _any_ books on magic here,” Brian admits, making a beeline for the nearby labeled shelf and coughing from the dust.

“They’re probably all ancient,” Pat says, “they must be from the last witch who lived here.”

“Still, it’s not like it doesn’t work anymore. Wow, they must’ve really loved making potions.” He flips through a few pages of one of the hefty tomes full of formulas. “If you ever need to… repel wool moths in the first quarter of the year, this has you covered. These are so _specific_ …”

Patrick laughs, and eventually drifts away as Brian becomes genuinely invested in browsing through all of the very particular potions that exist. He loses track of his primary objectives for a while, sitting sprawled against the bookshelf and occasionally calling out some of the more obscure findings across the otherwise-empty room.

He doesn’t bother checking the card catalogue since the magic section is so small, instead taking the time to read down each spine. There’s one book on gardening with magic that he flips through with interest, but nothing regarding music or sound. It’s a shame, but not a surprise. The garden book could have further insights, at least.

Walking around the perimeter of the room, he finds mostly books on agriculture and livestock, building and crafts, histories both local and general. There’s a sizable fiction section—where Patrick has parked himself—but most of the contents are very practical. 

It turns out, there’s nearly a full shelf of books about ghosts.

“How come there’s so many of these?” Brian asks.

Pat looks over and hums. “They were mine. Or my family’s.” He’s slow to respond, putting his sentences together carefully. “They got them for me to help figure things out. Donated them when they left.”

“Did the books help?”

He huffs ambiguously, crossing his arms and leaning back against a bookshelf. “They’re all pretty fucking bleak, honestly. Mostly they’re diaries, and the ones that aren’t don’t really _get it_. But the diaries are all, like—okay, so this one’s the most famous one,” he tilts the spine back of a worn paperback so that it’s standing out of the lineup, “the guy’s last entry is about how he’s done and ready to give up. And that’s it. Fuckin’ rough read for a fourteen-year-old.”

“They’re not all like that though?” Brian asks, hopeful.

“Pretty much. I mean, that’s what they all were. Maybe there’s more now.” Patrick runs his hand through his hair. “They go on for however long, get increasingly miserable or apathetic or whatever, then give up the ghost and disappear. I guess that’s the narrative that sells.”

“That’s horrible…” 

“Don’t—look, I’m fine. It’s fine.”

“It’s not fine.”

“Ok, yeah, it’s not. But I am. And it’s just the kind of angsty teen shit I’d have read either way. So you don’t have to look at me like that.”

Brian’s not sure how not to look like he wants to go back in time and console a Pat he never knew, so he looks away. He doesn’t know how to reconcile what Pat said with his cavalier delivery.

“Come on, don’t worry about those old sad bastards. Or me. I’m a modern-day sad bastard, here to subvert expectations. Anyway, might I interest you in _Sericulture for Beginners_?”

It wrings a smile and then a laugh and then a cough out of Brian, and he’s happy the tension in his heart has eased. 

“Only if you want me to fill the shed with silkworms.”

“Finally, someone who understands what I want out of life.”

Pat’s grinning—maybe a little wider than necessary—and Brian sighs and smiles at him in a silent agreement to leave the sadness behind.

He ends up with a cookbook, the magical gardening book, and a regular gardening book. Pat grabs a novel, admitting he’s already read much of what he’s interested in here over the years.

Tara’s ready with letters for Brian from his family and Jonah by the time they’re ready for her to check them out and she does so with the practiced efficiency of a woman holding several jobs at once, friendly but professionally eager to wave them on rather than keep them lingering and catching up. 

It’s for the best that the rain’s let up when they leave, now that they have books and all, but Brian finds himself a little disappointed.

The current edition of the Magic Compendium confirms that what Brian’s done with alcohol is nothing new, and that the similar principles and techniques can in fact be applied to extracting physical affects from coffee. There’s a more complex variant of the spell for the likes of chili peppers and mint. He’s a little disappointed, but not surprised to find that he wasn’t the first to stumble upon this, especially considering he did so without practice. It would have been such an easy thesis…

The Compendium refers him to various publications in which he can find details on these and all other currently known spells, but unsurprisingly none are in the Hartdell library. It’s a major detour from what he’s been working on with sound, but he can’t help but lean into the curiosity driving him down this new path.

So that’s how he got here, burning the candle at both ends, staying up late and studying food and plants and the science thereof while also playing music sometimes until his callused fingers cramp and ache. If Pat’s noticed his study habits ramping up, he hasn’t said anything. Perhaps his concern only extends to Brian eating enough to not pass out.

He shakes his head to chase away the interest in whether or not Pat has noticed him. It’s normal to want to be noticed. And like Pat said, he’s a show-off. That’s all.

Pat’s been busy too. Even with the barley harvest done for the year, he explained that he has to clear the field and get it ready so that there’s minimal work to do when planting after the new year. 

Brian goes with him sometimes when it’s not raining under the pretense of practicing. He really is practicing, but he’s also distracting Pat with silly songs and conversation. Distracting himself with stolen glances. He reasons that he’s being so diligent most of the time, he can forgive himself this indulgence.

It might not be cold enough for it yet, but Brian digs his quilted cotton winter cloak, the same shade of grey as the linen one, out from the wardrobe and wraps it around himself against the brisk fall breeze. It’s another sunny day, but he’s had a persistent cough for a while and he doesn’t want to tip the scales over into illness.

Zuko joins him and Pat today while they walk along, crunching through brittle leaves. They split off at the grain field, which still has clearing to be done, and Brian says he should be back in a couple hours before heading out to the bridge to fish for the first time in a while.

He was up too late again last night, this time testing if he can draw caffeine out of coffee grounds. It would have been very helpful for him right now if he’d been able to figure it out, but he suspects he’ll need to brew them first after all.

Brian sits against the railing of the bridge and props his fishing pole up between him and a post and wraps his arms around himself underneath the heavy cloak. Zuko lays atop his lap and the perfect nap ritual is complete. He is powerless to resist its spell and closes his heavy eyelids, tilting his head just so the brim of his hat blocks out the sun. 

It’s a huge success, as far as naps go. He falls fully asleep, dreaming insignificantly, finally making up for some of the nights he’s deprived himself of rest while absorbed in this or that angle of research.

If he hears the quick-paced crunch of leaves approaching, it doesn’t wake him.

And if he feels, even in sleep, that he’s being watched, it’s not enough for him to stir.

When he does come to, it’s slow, like he’s clawing his way out of a hole in the sand.

“Brian!” Pat’s saying, waving a hand in front of his face until he looks up suddenly. Pat looks worried and cards his hair and asks, “You ‘kay?”

And as soon as Brian nods, silent and puzzled, he nods in return and leaves in a hurry.

It’s confusing. Even if his thoughts weren’t sleep-slow, moving through molasses trying to make sense of everything and separate dream from reality, he’s not sure if he could parse how everything feels slightly off. 

He reels his empty line back in quick, scoops up Zuko, and stumbles back down the bridge a few steps before he’s balanced enough to walk quickly.

The cold air burns his lungs and he coughs hard inside the collar of the cloak. It’s so cold but he’s too hot, sweating under the heavy outer layer, and all of these contradictory feelings do nothing to make him feel more awake and present.

“Patrick,” he calls when he catches sight of him down the trail not far from the field, “wait up!”

Pat stills for a moment, scuffing his foot in the leaves in front of him, before turning with an empty smile.

Brian tries to speed up but stumbles and stops to lean doubled over against a tree, coughing heavily. Zuko jumps out of his arms and curls around his leg, concerned.

The nervous pit in Brian’s stomach, the one that says _something is wrong_ and _you fucked up and you don’t know how_ spurs him on, but by the time he’s looking up again, Pat’s right in front of him.

“Are you sick?” He asks, eyebrows knit in concern and arm raised like he considered reaching out but thought better of it.

“No, no. Just stood up too fast.” _He has a point_. “Just tired lately. Up late.” _What was I thinking, what was it, I just had it._ “I, uh… I’m good. Heading back.”

He slaps his cheek lightly to try wake himself up but it doesn’t work. Zuko’s leading now, glancing back regularly to check on him even though he’s _fine_ , a thought which he projects as strongly as he can while also concentrating on walking evenly and not letting the persistent tickle in his throat give way to another coughing fit.

There was something he was thinking, something important, _where did it go_?

It’s not until he’s inside and dropped artlessly in the chair and he hears the door shut gently behind him that he realizes Pat followed them back. He takes a deep breath to compose himself before he turns to face him.

“Really, I’m fine. Sorry if I freaked you out. I just had a nap, maybe I swallowed a bug or too much Zuko fur.”

Pat’s looking at him critically, like he’s a fucking lie detector, when he remembers—finds the thread of that thought, and _pulls_.

“You’ve never come to the bridge before today, why’s that?”

It doesn’t seem to throw him off guard, maybe he expected it, but Pat breaks eye contact with the slightest furrow in his brow. He walks over to the window and scoops Charlie up from the windowsill, keeping him turned so he can still look outside.

He’s quiet for long enough that Brian thinks he might just be waiting for him to move on to something else, then he says, “Give you one guess.”

“You died there.” Brian’s voice slips out, soft but certain.

“Got it in one.”

Charlie sees a bird and chatters over Pat’s heavy sigh.

“Is that why you ask when I’ll be back when I go fishing?”

“Mm. It’s not dangerous or anything. It just feels like bad luck, for me.” He sets Charlie back on the windowsill and finally turns around, leaning up against the wall and fussing with the button on the cuff of his sleeve.

“I couldn’t feel any magic there,” Brian says, confused.

“It’s really just me being a superstitious dumbass. There’s nothing bad there. They reinforced it, after. It’s safe, just gives me the fucking creeps.”

After being so mindful of boundaries for so long it seems as good a time as any to start to push, now that his curiosity is so thoroughly piqued and he _finally_ feels like he’s fully present. “What happened?”

“Drowned, in a nutshell.” Pat cards his hair. Brian does too. “I was… My friend, not Simone, and I were—fuck, we were too old for this shit—we were pretending to be wrestlers. And I got on the rail, like it was a rope? It was wood, before. And it was old, I guess, and I was _definitely_ too fucking old for that, it broke and I fell and hit my head—it was shallow—and that was it.”

Brian’s not sure what to say. He wants to reach out and wrap his arms around him, because if their positions were reversed it’s what he would want. Because Pat looks so uncomfortable standing there with his arms in close like he’s maybe fighting the urge to hold _himself_. Because he’s thinking again about how he wants to reach back in time itself and pull a past Pat away from sadness and danger. Because he can't imagine what it's like to keep growing older with your peers while also growing further away from so many shared experiences. Because he feels helpless. 

“I’m sorry,” Brian says, quiet. “How long was it…?”

“Took a week to come back. They’d already had the funeral. Probably for the best, that would’ve been fuckin’ weird.” He laughs at that, somewhat forcefully. “Just, suddenly, I was on the riverbank down a ways.”

He can imagine it, a younger Pat suddenly blinking into existence, alone and cold, rushing home, maybe falling through a tree and having to come to terms with _that_ … 

Dipping his toes into that train of thought overwhelms him. He pushed things further with questioning and feels like it’s his responsibility to pull them both back.

“Hey, I was gonna try making some coffee to see if I can get the caffeine out, any interest in working on that?” It’s not the most subtle segue he’s ever made.

Tension visibly slips from Pat’s shoulders and he gives a tentative smile. “Only if _you_ don’t plan on having any.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll sleep early.”

It takes a lot more work this time. Even when he can finally feel the caffeine, its movements are so erratic that it takes some figuring out to grab it and hold it while looking for more.

He tells Pat about his childhood, about learning all the most mischievous spells from his siblings and pretending to make potions by mixing condiments in his mother’s cauldron. About how much trouble that got him in. About the first play he was in. Learning to add magic to dancing. How his mom can draw the sound of the ocean from a seashell, because the shell _remembers_ ; how he wishes he could get that spell right because he misses it, sometimes.

Pat tells him more about gathering mushrooms and a childhood spent with free reign in the woods. About trying to build a secret base with Simone and their friends. Finishing homework on the drive to Samsbrook and finding excuses to punch each other on the way back. How he accidentally started an underground fighting ring with other elementary school boys and how much trouble that got him in. The summer when everyone was really into marbles and how his favorite had a green and black swirl.

He only talks about before the accident at the bridge, but Brian’s heard enough about after for now.

On Pat’s request, Brian manages to put a couple threads around his fingers, which Pat clenches into a fist and brings up near his face, marveling even though he can neither see nor feel them.

By the time Brian’s ready for real—after several false starts that slip through his fingers—he’s decided to just grab _enough_ because it doesn’t seem like getting all of it is going to happen. He pushes the threads into Pat, letting his fingertips graze his chest as he holds and waits for an okay.

“Wow!” Pat says, startling slightly. He gives a thumbs up and Brian sits back again.

It’s less of a revelation—he’d had coffee more regularly, before—but Pat’s still excited beyond just the small amount of caffeine in his system and he gets up and twirls Charles around in his arms. 

The temptation to drink the coffee regardless of what he agreed to earlier—to stay up late again with a halo of books and notes around him—must be visible, because as soon as Charles has wriggled his way free, Pat comes over, grabs the mug, and unceremoniously upends it over the sink.

When Brian fixes him with a dirty look, he laughs like it’s the funniest thing he’s ever seen, so that’s something at least.

His night ends perhaps earlier than any of them have since moving here. Brian’s crawled into bed without eating dinner while Pat’s taken his energized pacing out to the garden. He’s got the lamp still on, reading the same paragraph over and over, words spilling out of his mind like a sieve before he surrenders to sleep even before Patrick even comes back inside.


	6. Fall III

The current is too strong, tumbling Brian over and down scraping into the rocks and then further on before he can get his bearing. He surfaces for just a moment and gets a brief, shallow gasp of air before he’s pulled back under.

Now and then he’s able to catch his foot on a rock and turn his body in a way that makes sense but he’s bowled over again every time. It’s at least shallow enough that he can kick up for air, but it’s never enough to fully fill his lungs.

It feels like he’s being tossed like a rag-doll for an unfathomable stretch of time before he finds himself in the dark on his back—Zuko on his chest—in bed, gasping and rolling over to cough wetly.

He kicks off the blankets tangled around his legs, scrambles to his feet, and stumbles all of five steps to the kitchen. Gripping the counter like a lifeline, he leaves the faucet running while chugging a glass of water, pouring it too fast and soaking his already damp shirt with two rivers of water streaming down his throat. 

It’s not until he’s got a couple glasses down and he’s hunching over the counter trying to catch his breath that he feels a concerned Zuko rub against his leg, then turns to see Pat glowing faintly beside him. He’s too tired to jump, instead just closes his eyes tight and breathes as deep as he can.

“What’s going on?” Pat asks, concerned but keeping a distance between them.

“Nothing!” He has to clear his throat a few times before continuing, “I’m fine! Just a nightmare.” He doesn’t even believe that himself, still white-knuckling the counter.

Pat tsks, mutters something that sounds suspiciously like _bullshit_ , but Brian’s caught in another coughing fit before he can respond.

Suddenly there’s a hand on his forehead, offering sweet cold relief for a long moment before it’s gone and Pat’s saying, “I’m pretty sure you have a fever.”

Brian breathes out a shaky sighs, considers how unsteady he’s feeling now. “Yeah… that tracks.”

“Do you have medicine?”

“No… ‘spensive… I just need to sleep more. I dunno if I slept at all. It feels like I’ve been half-awake for hours.”

He braces himself, then turns and shoves off the counter for the momentum needed to stumble back into bed, falling to his knees on the mattress immediately. It takes more coordination than he can muster in the dark to separate one blanket from where they’re all wrapped up together so he gives up and falls back on his pillow, uncovered and defeated.

Moments later, Pat is at the foot of the bed, pulling one blanket away from the others and laying it over Brian so easily that he feels embarrassed even as he’s curling up under the blanket.

“You want water over here?” Pat asks. He’s crouching beside the head of the bed now, speaking soft.

Brian shakes his head mutely into the pillow. He feels too hot and too cold at the same time and he’s not sure how he’s going to fall asleep even with the bone-deep exhaustion settling in. Could be he’s just going to fall right back into another dream, wandering endlessly through it like a maze.

“Uh, could you… my forehead? again?”

“Hm? Oh!” 

Pat isn’t bright enough for Brian to see the glow of him through closed eyes, so it’s a surprise the moment when feels the hand on his forehead and breathes a stuttered sigh, melting with relief against the cool touch.

All he hears from Patrick is a contemplative hum before he feels pressure on his head and the cold dips in past the surface of his skin and he _whimpers_. Pat yanks his hand back and Brian whines with the loss, chasing it as far as he can while laying.

“You’re killin’ me,” Pat says, exasperated but resting his hand on Brian’s forehead again anyway.

Brian sighs again, tries to relax his curled and tensed body. “Can you just, like… stay like this. Forever.”

Pat laughs out a breath. “Not unless I crawl into bed with you.”

“Please,” He says in his next breath. 

Pat withdraws his hand again—despite Brian’s groan of protest—and drags it down his face, muttering unintelligibly. 

Enough time passes that Brian’s started drifting off listening to the vague shuffling sounds of Pat milling about before he feels the weight of the mattress dip beside him. When he turns over to look, Pat’s laying rigid on his back on top of the blanket—shoes off, at least—the least relaxed another person has ever looked in the history of the world.

“C’mon,” Brian says, petulant. “Blanket.”

Reluctantly, Pat moves to get the blanket out from under himself, then resumes his stone-still tension underneath.

WIthout the energy to hold an actual _conversation_ about whatever the hell it is he’s wrangling an uneager Pat into, Brian settles for curling in toward him so that his forehead is resting against Pat’s shoulder. He’s still too hot and too cold and breathing carefully so he doesn’t provoke another coughing fit but he focuses on the cool touch against his head like an anchor and drifts back out to sleep.

 

When Brian wakes up again it’s light out and he’s alone in bed, save for Zuko on a pillow next to him. He rolls over to look for Pat and sees him in the kitchen. His name comes out as a whisper, followed by more coughing.

Pat turns around at that and smiles, bringing a bowl over to Brian.

“You’re in luck, I made your favorite: Plain oatmeal.”

He’s a little too disoriented to laugh along or pout at being made fun of. It’s not too hard to sit up, though—in fact, it makes breathing a little easier—and he rests the hot bowl atop the blanket on his lap and takes a slow spoonful.

Cringing hard and mustering up all of his willpower to swallow the bite down, he turns to Pat with a look of betrayal.

“There’s nothing in this!”

“I said it was plain.”

“It needs honey! Or sugar! Spices!” 

If nothing else, he’s at least got enough energy for that outburst. The thought of swallowing down another bland-bitter bite makes his skin crawl. He’s not even hungry, just knows that he’ll feel less unpleasant if he eats.

Pat returns from the kitchen with a glass of water and the jar of honey, not looking nearly as apologetic as he should given the food crime he just committed.

Brian stares at the honey drizzling into his bowl hypnotically and adds too much. It’s edible now, at least.

Halfway through the bowl, he notices Zuko staring at him. “Oh, sorry,” he says, “I’ll get your food soon.”

“I fed him this morning,” Pat says from the kitchen. “Hope that was okay.”

“Oh, yeah. Thank you.” He turns to Zuko, “Nice try, grifter. Can’t believe you’re taking advantage of me when I’m sick.”

As if on cue, Pat arrives to take Brian’s bowl once he’s eaten all he can handle and takes it to wash. “I’m gonna go into town,” he says, loud over the faucet, “you want me to pick up anything?”

“Leeks,” Brian says right away. “A couple, please. And ginger, and, uh… can you check if I still have thyme? Oh, and some applesauce. Please.”

“Wait, let me write that all down. No medicine?”

“No, too expensive. The leeks will help, and the ginger.”

“No _food_?”

“I just… want applesauce. That’s my sick food.”

Pat looks at him for a moment, like he wants to push, but shrugs it off and turns back to the dishes, shaking his head. Brian’s glad he doesn’t press the matter, he doesn’t think he could handle a prolonged conversation when he can already feel the urge to sleep lapping at him like the tide coming in.

Cursory efforts to read where he’d left off the night before don’t last long after Pat leaves, and Brian succumbs to the waves of sleep washing over him, tightly cocooning himself in blankets. 

 

Brian feels sick, and he wants so badly to sleep. People keep coming to his house, though. Family and good friends, so he can’t quite ignore them. Every time he finds someone new they congratulate him on his thesis and he tries with increasing desperation to explain that he’s not feeling well and he needs to rest. And then when he’s done with them, there are even more new people just arriving.

So many people are in the witch house, which is also his home and some amorphous other ideas of houses in general, and he can barely squeeze past the crush of bodies all here to see him. He thinks, idly, that Pat must be upset that he has so many people over. He should find him, recruit him in his efforts to get everyone to let him sleep. His sister is here and he would love to be excited to see her, but he feels so _hopeless_ with how badly he needs to rest.

He spends a small eternity going from room to room, connected through hallways that make no logical sense, when he hears the front door open _again_.

“I’m back,” Pat says.

When Brian opens his eyes, he finds that he’s still wrapped up tight in blankets. He can feel the pressure of a cat purring against his back, but he can see Zuko in the windowsill. It takes longer than usual to remember what’s real and what was a dream.

Pat sets a couple of bags on the table, then comes over and reaches behind Brian, saying, “Good work, Charles.” The aforementioned cat meows back at him.

“I feel bad,” Brian says. He’s trembling but not feeling particularly _cold_. His shirt’s soaked through with sweat. 

“No shit,” says Pat, setting a jar of applesauce and a spoon beside the mattress.

“How long were you gone?” Even though it probably hasn’t been long since he ate, the siren song of applesauce beckons him to unravel himself from his blanket cocoon enough pop the jar open, his arms aching even through that simple gesture.

“Hmm… less than an hour. Simone gave me a ride back.”

“Really?” He asks around a spoon. “How come?”

“Well, she was rather insistent that I bring you some of her chicken broth,” Pat pulls the container out from a bag, holding it out so he can see, “and when I said I didn’t think I could carry it all back , she said she’d give me a ride. And that I need to come up with ‘better excuses for my bullshit’.” He air-quotes for emphasis.

“That’s really nice of her,” Brian says sincerely.

Pat snorts, but smiles and lets it rest. “So, yeah, otherwise I just got applesauce, ginger and leeks as requested. And rice. Simone said you can add some to the broth if you want something heartier. I brought in thyme from the garden.”

“Great, thanks again. Can I have one of the leeks?”

Pat brings it over with a curious expression. “You don’t eat these raw, do you?”

“No, no. It’s for magic. Ugh, could you bring me a clean shirt? And my cloak?”

He does so. “Do you need these for magic?”

“Nah… got gross and sweaty. Feel clammy.”

His breath hitches when Pat reaches out to touch his forehead again.

“Hm. Yeah, still a little hot.”

“Only a little?” Brian closes his eyes and smiles. Pat doesn’t humor him with a response and instead throws a t-shirt at his face.

His shoulders ache just pulling his shirt off and tossing it across the room. Pat _tsk_ s when it lands on the floor. He wishes he looked like less of a wreck, knows his hair must be a disaster and his face splotchy red, can feel himself breathing too hard through the pain of simply removing a shirt. At least Pat’s turned away sharply, sparing him a stare-down while he’s in such a state.

Pulling the cloak loosely around his shoulders, he sits up a little straighter and fights a small wave of nausea in doing so. He works in practiced silence down the length of the leek, grateful that this magic doesn’t require any wild gesticulations or very precise handling. Halfway through, he lets his tired eyes fall shut. He’s pretty sure he gets all of it, pulling all the right threads and spreading them down the side of his bare torso, but he sets it aside to check again when he’s feeling better.

He picks up the clean shirt and considers leaving it off rather than facing the strain of lifting his arms again before deciding he’d rather create a facade sense of put-togetherness than not. Upon opening his eyes, he catches Pat looking at him for only a moment before he turns away again. 

“What’s—Um, how’s that magic work?”

Huh, he’d’ve thought Pat would be used to watching him do magic by now.

“’S for shingles. I don’t… think? That’s what’s going on? But I don’t want it to… be that, Become that. If it’s not. So leeks help.”

“Why do leeks help?”

“It’s _magic_ , Pat Gill.”

He laughs and leaves it be. 

After making sure Brian’s not in any immediate danger, just a manageable amount of discomfort, Pat leaves to work outside for a while. Brian tries reading the magic gardening book but the print is small and his eyes are tired so he flips through the pages looking for interesting illustrations instead.

Eventually he gets himself to stand and retrieves a cast iron cauldron no bigger than a large mug from within his trunk. He sets it on the table and pulls a well-worn leather journal from the lineup of books against the wall, flipping back and forth near the front until he gets to the family cough remedy.

He measures honey and salt and water with careful precision, slow with shaking hands. Slicing ginger correctly goes even more slowly, and he has to discard more of it than he’d like due to careless mistakes and the awkward angle that cutting while sitting down requires.. The thyme, at least, he can pluck easily and it can’t be ruined when his body is wracked with coughing fits.

All of this he mixes in a particular order, having read the recipe through several times, and then he drags the chair close enough to the stovetop that he can stir sitting down, moving the wooden spoon in the appropriate direction for each phase of the potion. Potions aren’t something that come to him naturally, so he has to rely on following instructions carefully. He removes the cauldron cautiously with a thick kitchen towel and sets it on a trivet to cool, laying a full stem of thyme across the top to catch the steam wafting up. 

Driven to extremes out of boredom, he eventually retrieves his ukulele a novel from his trunk, losing himself in the ease of words he’s read before. Zuko joins him, purring in his lap, while he drifts between daydreams and reading and plucking notes lackadaisically.

He’s been improvising an ode to Zuko for a small eternity when Pat and Charles return. Zuko leaps up to greet them, to thank them for saving him, and Brian simply weaves this betrayal into the ongoing narrative.

 

By nightfall Brian’s fever has worn off enough that he can manage standing at least long enough to measure out rice and broth, which has cooled to a surprisingly gelatinous consistency in the refrigerator. He sits at the table and does some perfunctory organization of his chaotic notes, eating the occasional spoonful of applesauce, until the rice has cooked into a flavorful porridge.

The potion is ready after curing for several hours and he swallows one large spoonful after dinner, then leans his face right over the cooled cauldron and breathes in its vapors for five minutes. He places a small lid over it and leaves it on the countertop, breathing easier already.

Sleep weighs heavy on Brian’s eyes and he trudges the few steps back into bed, straightening out the blankets inexpertly after having so thoroughly wound them around himself earlier.

Pat keeps glancing over looking like he’s about to speak and then looking away, busying himself with this or that.

It’s not like there’s not a perfectly legitimate reason, but Brian still feels a thrill of hope and guilt when he asks, “Would you mind, ah…”

While he’s trying to figure out his wording, Pat picks up his intention with a quick nod and an, “Oh yeah, no problem,” and he flicks off the light on his way over to the bed.

He doesn’t lay stiff like he’s playing possum this time, instead turning on his side and laying his hand right over Brian’s forehead deliberately. Brian sighs and feels the tension slip from his body once more. 

“Sorry, I hope I don’t get you sick,” Brian murmurs.

“Oh, I can’t get sick,” Pat says. “I, actually, ha—maybe this is a shitty thing to say right now? But I kind of miss it.”

“You’re insane,” Brian says miserably.

“I don’t miss feeling sick, I know you feel horrible. I just miss how it is when you’re, like, a kid. And you have a day to yourself and it’s quiet. And someone takes care of you.”

“What’d you used to do?”

“Draw, mostly. Or just imagine stuff. Read ahead in books for class if they were interesting.”

“If my sister and I were sick at the same time we just got each other too riled up to stay still and get better. Drove our parents crazy. If it was just me I listened to music. Moose would lay with me all day. My mom would pet his head with one hand and my hair with the other.”

Pat shifts and then there’s a hand in Brian’s hair, tentatively scrubbing at his scalp. “Like this?”

“Yeah…” He says with a sigh. “Sorry, my hair’s prob’ly gross…”

“I’ll comb it out for you,” Pat says, running his hand through Brian’s hair cautiously, stopping at the first sign of his fingers snagging on a knot to of working them out gently from the ends. Once his hair’s straightened out, he scratches lightly on his scalp again with slow, measured movements.

Brian’s gone to a quiet place in his mind. He thinks maybe it’s good that this is happening while he’s sick, that his brain is too exhausted to work itself up over this kind of fawning attention and think too much of it. Get himself riled up. Instead he just surrenders to the light, cold touch soothing him in a way that washes from his head to his toes.

“Roll over,” Pat says, quiet, and it’s not until he moves his hand under Brian’s shoulder and lifts slightly that he twitches back to wakefulness and rolls over with only the slightest wincing gasps of pain escaping from the effort of doing so. Once he’s settled, Pat pushes his shirt up just a bit before asking, “Okay?”

Unsure where this is going, but still relatively boneless from the scalp massage, Brian hums affirmatively.

Pat pushes his shirt up gently until it’s bunched up by his shoulders and grazes his fingers so lightly on Brian’s skin in long, sweeping motions, that they flutter out of contact entirely at times and only the light brushing of the hair on his back signals that they’ll be returning again soon. Brian feels chills ripple across his skin with Pat’s fingertips at the epicenter.

“My mom used to do this,” Pat says, voice as feather-soft as his hand meandering aimlessly all across Brian’s back. “I called it ‘tingles’.”

It’s soothing, but engaging enough that Brian doesn’t find himself slipping into sleep again. He’s fully present and simply relaxed, calm under the caring attention of Pat’s cool fingertips.

Eventually, Pat stops, trails off with one final slow line before he pulls Brian’s shirt back down for him and his hand alights and returns to its own body, and he rolls onto his back wordlessly.

In the space of a few breaths, Brian reaches a decision and turns to face Pat, pushing his shoulder up and motioning with his head. Pat holds his gaze for a moment, then turns, breathing out slowly as he does. 

Brian pulls his shirt up with his thumb riding the peaks and valleys of Pat’s spine until the base of his neck is exposed, then tries to imitate the delicate skimming touches of Pat’s memories. He traces patterns along the cold expanse, first thorough meditative zen garden raking, then simple geometric shapes, and then constellations connected by points of bone and mole and dimple. 

It’s not until his own eyes begin to fall closed that he realizes Pat’s gone slack and still, unbreathing in his sleep. He pulls his shirt back down gently and scoots in so that his head is resting against Pat’s back, hands curled in tight to his own chest.

 

Brian wakes alone again, flanked by two cats, insignificant dreams fading away instantly. He turns his head to see Pat sitting at the table, in the act of setting his book down the moment he heard stirring.

“Sleep alright?” He asks.

Brian starts to talk, clears his throat, starts again. “Yeah. My fever broke. I think… I mean, I just woke up. But my head’s clearer. Probably.”

“Good.” Pat nods. He opens his mouth to speak again, then hesitates before saying, “Sorry I fell asleep so fast.”

“You’re good. I fell asleep right after you.”

Pat looks at him like he’s going to respond, but ultimately just nods.

Stretching his still-aching muscles agitates the cats enough that they both depart. Brian counts himself down before he stands up, dutifully taking another dose of his potion before tucking back into the applesauce.

“Hey, uh,” Pat says, “There’s really no way to say this without sounding like a dick, but, are you planning on showering today?”

Brian snorts out a laugh and hides his mouth behind his hand until he can compose himself enough to swallow his applesauce. “Oh yeah, totally, I feel disgusting. I probably have a nice salty crust, too. I got so sweaty.”

Chuckling and looking relieved, Pat says, “Yeah, if I can smell you, you know it’s gotten bad.”

After a few more spoonfuls of applesauce, Brian brings a change of clothes with him into the bathroom, leaving the door cracked as always because otherwise Zuko will _worry_.

Sitting in the deep clawfoot bath tub under the warm shower spray, he takes a long time to just rest and breathe in the hot steamy air before eventually unsticking his arms enough to begin washing. On another day he might be concerned with keeping his shower short, but he just added more cinnamon around the hot water tank and would rather take the time to soothe his aching body in the warmth.

He spends a while sitting still, running his fingertips lightly over his arm, curling in on himself and hugging his knees when the sense-memory overwhelms him too much.

Zuko does not come in to check on him, but he does feel a passing disgust when his familiar walks close enough that he can’t ignore the sound of water. 

After toweling off and putting on new clothes—real clothes, too, not just clean sleep clothes—Brian feels halfway to being healthy again. 

Upon stepping out of the bathroom, he sees Pat sitting on the mattress draped in a white bedsheet. He turns—presumably to face him but Brian can’t see through the sheet—and waves his sheeted hand and says, “Hewwo.”

Brian grins ear to ear, holds back his laughter to say, “That’s a nice ghost costume you’ve got there, Patrick.”

At this, Pat pulls the sheet off his head but keeps it draped around himself otherwise. “Yeah, the sheets smelled bad too so I went ahead and changed them. Well, I started to. Can’t wash them though, they’ll get too heavy.”

“You’re good. You didn’t even have to change them, thanks.”

Pat nods, looks at him for another moment, then stands and lays the sheet out nicely. Brian helps him spread the blankets out, uncomfortable with watching him just do it alone.

Feeling much more clear-headed, he spends the day getting back into research and writes a letter to his mom asking for books on food science while sipping a mug of hot broth. He steadfastly ignores a voice in the back of his head that is warning him about getting off track, spreading his studies too thin. _I’m sick_ , he thinks, _Once I’m recovered, it’ll be fine._

He’s alone for a while in the late afternoon, Pat having gone into town to see Simone, and mail Brian’s letter for him while he’s there. Brian made him promise to _genuinely_ thank Simone for the food. He watched him leave from the window, then, absurdly, felt like he’d been caught in the act when he turned and saw Charles watching him.

It rains before the sun sets, going from dark to darker, and Brian opens the door and sits in the doorway in his cloak and hat just to feel like he’s doing some real work when all he’s doing is strumming dreamily out into the night.

When he catches sight of Pat down the road some distance away, he tries not to jump visibly. He tries to keep his pose nonchalant, his playing slow, even as he feels a surge of energy and wants to run out into the rain to meet him and probably get himself all that much sicker.

He keeps conspicuously casual only until he knows Pat is close enough to see him wave, stays sitting until he needs to get out of the way. 

They catch each other up on their days while Brian sautés mushrooms and garlic to add to his rice, cooked with the remainder of the broth. He takes the final dose of his potion, hoping that he won’t end up needing more. 

They read quietly to themselves while he wonders if the anxious tension building up inside of him is going to break him. 

He gets the second leek, treats himself with it, goes back over the first to gather the few strands he missed before.

Finally in bed again, slipping under the covers laid out nicer than he’s bothered to do for himself in a good long while, Brian feels like his heart is going to beat into his throat and suffocate him. He’s just waiting for the right moment, hoping his voice will unstick then. That he won’t sound rude or desperate or _weird_.

_Say it._

_Say it._

_Say it._

Pat’s walking over to the lightswitch.

“Hey, Pat,” Brian says, steels himself, “I feel better, but— The bed’s wide enough. If you want to sleep here. Unless you’d rather sit. Just throwing it out there.”

Fingers resting lightly against the switch, Pat turns, looks at Brian for too long. It feels like he’s trying to find the catch, like he’s going to see past the kindness he’s extended right into the greedy part of him that’s also reaching out.

“I don’t prefer it,” He says, eventually.

Brian’s not sure what he means at first, already having forgotten whatever words came tumbling out of his mouth, when the room goes dark and Pat walks toward him and unceremoniously crawls under the covers with a quiet, “Night.”

Charles comes over immediately and settles on Pat’s chest as if drawn by a magnet, purring loud into the night. Brian wants to reach out and pet him, but Pat’s eyes are closed already, and there’s as much distance between them as there can conceivably be, and he can no longer claim these impulses are febrile.

Zuko obliges, at least, when he wants him to come over. He settles against Brian’s side with a graceless flop and Brian worries his hand over the soft spot behind his familiar’s ears until the stereo purring lulls him to sleep.


	7. Winter I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is so much better than it would have been because I finally got a beta reader thank you fish!!!

It’s getting difficult to outrun the guilt lurking at the edge of Brian’s mind. At first it was only there when he was studying something other than sound. Then it started happening when he was doing anything other than studying. Now, it’s omnipresent even when he’s working diligently with his ukulele.

_You’ve wasted so much time already. It’s too late. You can’t make it up._

Half his time is gone and that thought has been keeping him up at night so that even when he’s diligent about not letting his research distract him until sunrise, he’s still stuck trying to get his mind to settle long enough to get some rest. Fixating on the ghost beside him had been at least a different brand of insomnia for a while, but this has overshadowed even that.

And yet…

It’s too difficult not to follow his interests where they’re pulling him. It’s not that he’s not interested in his musical research still. There’s just a particularly passionate flame lit under him, guiding him further and further down another path.

He hasn’t even fully admitted his goals to himself at this point, where he hopes he could end up with all of this other work. Because it’s too late. He can’t drop half a year of work and research and redirect to an entirely different subject, no matter how fascinating, no matter how exciting, no matter how his thoughts rest on it always like it’s become his true north.

So he splits his time, sometimes less evenly than would help assuage his worries, and steadfastly refuses to confront the fact that if this continues he is doomed to failure on both fronts.

 

One chilly afternoon, when the sun has already begun to set too early in the day, Brian pulls on a sweater and wraps himself in his winter cloak and heads into town. Pat left earlier with several winter squash and vague plans to stop by the library before heading home and Brian was getting overly frustrated with music. He moves his fingers over the strings in the same subtle patterns so many times that the patterns begin to lose meaning, their steps getting jumbled, and he falls out of rhythm one too many times before quitting for now in a frustrated huff.

“I’m going out for a bit,” He mutters in passing to Zuko, who barely cracks his eyes open in acknowledgement before resuming his nap.

It hasn’t snowed yet, but it feels like it could. There’s frost on the windows in the morning and the air outside is cold in a way that sharpens the scent of the woods to a fine point. Soon he’ll need to tuck a stick of cinnamon into one of the inner pockets, prepared for him to draw heat from before his hands go completely numb.

Just taking a walk around the woods probably would have sufficed. Even just to the bridge and back would have given him enough time to clear his head and shake out the frustration and be ready to sit down and get back to work. However, working at all brings back the pressing fear that it’s too late, that he’s going to fail no matter how hard he tries to make up for lost time.

So really, it’s the perfect time to go into town and talk to someone, anyone, and grab a drink.

Simone’s is busy when he walks in, loud and alive and delightfully warm. He feels the tension of the cold melt off of him immediately.

He shouldn’t be surprised, really, to see Pat sitting at his usual seat on the far end of the bar laughing at something that Simone is gesticulating passionately about. Yet, for some reason, he feels suddenly rooted where he’s standing, unwilling to intrude on their conversation.

Honestly, he just means to watch one more moment before heading back out and home to study again but ever-attentive Simone notices him right away and says something to Pat, nodding her head toward the doorway, and he turns and _smiles_ and beckons Brian over, and who is he to resist? He is _weak_.

“I am so glad you’re here,” Simone says, keeping eye contact with Brian only for as long as it takes him to sit down before she’s already walking away, calling back, “Keep him entertained so I can do my job!”

Pat rolls his eyes but he’s still smiling from however their conversation tapered off. “She’s full of shit, she just needs an excuse to take a break sometimes.”

“She’s not the only one,” Brian says, putting enough weight in his words to convey the full frustration of his day so far. “What were you talking about?”

“Just books, mostly. She wants me to read some short stories so we can talk about them. And she asked me to grow spaghetti squash.”

Simone passes wordlessly and sets a glass of beer in front of Brian without a pause in her stride before she’s off to take another order and then immediately clear off a table when the door shuts behind its previous occupant.

Brian takes his drink and turns around to watch her for a while, seeing how she coordinates with the couple other people working with only a couple words or even gestures from across the room. How she does every task she’s available for without delegating each one that might be beneath her. How she keeps track of the status of all of her customers as they progress through their time here. “She’s like a conductor,” he thinks aloud with awe, seeing her orchestrate and anticipate the beats of all of the goings-on around her, ready to give everyone their cue when the time is right.

Pat scoffs, but he’s smirking too. “Yeah, well, when we were kids she tried to play tying-me-to-a-railroad-track so I guess that’s some character growth.”

Brian wants to clarify—to ask if Pat’s ever seen a symphony—but his thoughts trip over ropes and by the time he recovers Simone is back, handing him another glass, giving him a wink and an, “On the house,” before talking shop with Pat now that she’s arrived at a long rest in activity.

He drinks half, gives the rest to Pat, and feels ready to get back to work again by the time they head home together.

 

In spite of his best efforts, many mornings have begun like this. Brian’s coming slowly to wakefulness and it takes him a good long moment to realize the still body he’s curled himself around is far less warm than it ought to be, that he shouldn’t be curled around anything at all.

It’s probably just a habit. He’s always been comfortable with physical affection, had no qualms about resting his head on the stomach of a friend while listening to music or throwing an arm around two acquaintances and inserting himself between them. And then later, those academy beds were so small there was really no choice but to cling to anyone else in bed with you unless you wanted to risk falling in the middle of the night.

So even though it’s been a while, it’s probably just a habit.

He wants to drift back to sleep like this, not eager to move from his comfortable position wrapped around Pat’s back—an arm draped loose over his waist, nose and forehead pressed into the valley between his neck and shoulder, his knees nested against Pat’s like he’s his shadow—but the tugging of his conscience always pulls him away, rolling onto his other side, murmuring a sleepy, “Sorry,” before slipping back to sleep.

Pat never responds at all, just stays stone still and sleeps through everything, seemingly indifferent to the gain or loss of body heat so long as Charles is curled against his chest.

 

While Brian may have ultimately chosen to focus his studies on magic, he’s still endlessly intrigued by pure science and is eager to dive into the books his mother sent upon his request. Sometimes the how and whys of why the world works the way it does makes the magic easier, and even when it doesn’t it still feels good to learn.

He loses himself for hours, poring over pages and diagrams and words technical enough to feel foreign, _magical_ ,  as he whispers to see how they fit in his mouth.

 _Trigeminal sensations_ include the cooling of mint, the heating of pepper, these physical evocations from different foods that are a part of its taste. It’s why the spell for them isn’t precisely the same as the ones he’s been using for alcohol and caffeine, Brian supposes. It’s not what he’s looking for, though.

He stops reading in the middle of one page to eat a suggested spoonful of honey while plugging his nose, spreading it around in his mouth thoughtfully before releasing his nose and tasting the rush of sweetness come into full bloom. He wondered how he’d gone this long without having been taught something as immediately obvious as the importance of smell in the perception of taste.

During meals he eats more slowly and thoughtfully, trying to separate components of more complex meals or really narrow down exactly what it is he’s tasting in his more simple endeavors.

Another package arrives from home, this one with several publications referred to in the compendium, and he refines the techniques he’s already learned before moving on to new ones, murmuring instructions to himself over a single dried chili pepper.

When it comes, success is bittersweet, as the concentrated heat of the chili lingers, burning, in Brian’s mouth.

 

The first snowfall of the winter comes midday during a long streak of cloudy skies. Zuko alerts Brian before it’s even begun to gather visibly on the ground. Soon thereafter, Pat comes in looking sour with a couple pieces of firewood and shoves them into the stove wordlessly, visibly drooping when he sees the fire has died.

“I’m gonna be cold for-fucking-ever,” he mutters, dropping into the chair with his arms crossed. He looks so archetypally sulky that Brian has to turn to the window quickly to suppress his laughter.

“I was thinking of going to Simone’s,” Brian says. “Do you wanna come with? It’s probably warmer there.”

Pat thinks a moment, pulling his mouth to the side, then sighs and heaves himself up again. “Yeah, I’ll go. It’ll still be cold when we get back but I’ll deal with that then.”

As Brian wraps his cloak around his shoulders, Zuko tugs at the end of it lightly with one paw. Once Brian’s looking at him, he sits back on his hind legs and reaches up briefly, as if he wasn’t already sharing how much he wanted to be carried rather than walk through the snow himself. Brian sighs fondly and after finding the slits in the cloak for his arms, scoops Zuko up to carry him like a baby.

Pat’s pulled a sweater over his flannel shirt and looks no happier for it when they set out.

The snow’s falling lightly enough that the road isn’t any more difficult to navigate than usual. Zuko flicks his ears petulantly with every flake that falls on them and does not appreciate Brian laughing at him when he does this.

“Your hair’s getting long,” Pat says.

Indeed, Brian’s hair has grown out into soft lofty waves. He runs his hand through it and rakes out a collection of snowflakes that’d gathered. “Yeah, I don’t feel like going out and getting a haircut. It’s probably better for the cold, anyway. Grow out my winter coat.”

Pat rakes the snow from his hair as well, though he pays little mind to how it sticks on his shoulders instead of melting away. “Are you gonna start shedding in the summer like Charles?”

Brian laughs, opens his mouth to respond but snaps it shut just as fast. The wave of anxiety that washes over him is palpable.

_You’re running out of time._

Zuko swats him firmly—but politely, without claws—on the cheek.

If Pat notices anything unusual going on, he keeps it to himself and they’re quiet the rest of the way there.

Unsurprisingly, Simone’s is busy again. With everyones’ thick coats and hats and gloves piled on hooks and backs of chairs, it feels even more crowded than usual. For the first time, their usual spots at the bar are already occupied and they find themselves relegated to a small table against a side wall.

Someone drops a couple of beers off at their table without either of them having ordered anything, so Simone is around somewhere working her own brand of magic.

“Everything alright,” Pat asks, watching intently. “You seem jittery.”

Brian jumps at the question and cringes at how he can’t even deny it now. Zuko, who’s sitting on the table, has his tail fluffed in sympathy. “Fine. Just stressed. I have a lot of work to do still and it feels like I’m running out of time even though I still have half my time here, but it feels like the first half went by so fast that I can’t imagine how I’m going to be able to finish.” He laughs weakly through the last of his breath and then drinks several gulps to shut himself up.

Pat just hums in consideration. The snow on his shoulders has finally finished melting. He breaks eye contact to draw his finger around the rim of his glass.

“Oh, shit, I’m sorry,” Brian says, reaching out to Pat’s glass. “I’m so in my own head right now. I’m sorry.”

“It’s no problem,” Pat says, though he sighs and closes his eyes to savor the feeling of it when Brian brushes his fingertips against the cold knit of the sweater on his chest. “It’s warm enough here that it’s helping without the drink anyway.”

“How come you don’t—Hey!” Brian swats at Zuko, who’s sniffing too near Pat’s glass of beer. “Why don’t you wear a bigger coat or something?”

“It doesn’t do anything. It’s all just for looks.”

“Wow, I didn’t expect you to be so into fashion!”

Pat laughs, sticks his hand behind his head and strikes a pose.

Simone bursts out laughing from behind him and, to his credit, he drops the pose slowly and with composure.

“Hi! Can’t chat right now, obviously, but do you guys need anything else?” Simone’s allowed her service smile to drop into the true, frenzied grin of someone who would very much like everything to calm the fuck down.

“Can I get something bottled? Someone’s being bad.” Brian shoots Zuko a pointed look. Zuko, who has his paw raised toward Pat’s glass, has the feline audacity to feign innocence.

“Patrick, you _bad boy_ ,” Simone says as she hurries off so that when Pat swats a hand out to shove her away he swipes at empty air.

“Sorry you had to take the fall for my cat,” Brian says.

“It’s fine. One more thing for my tell-all exposé, just keep ‘em coming.”

Zuko’s had his fill of a bowl of water and laid down on the table, uninterested in fussing with bottles, by the time the crowd begins to thin out and Brian and Pat are both well and truly drunk.

“No, really,” Brian’s saying, “You should write a book! You’ve got… perspective. On things. On ghost stuff. You said all those books you had were bad so you should make your own.”

This seems to be very funny to Pat, who’s barely able to get a word out through his laughter. “No! Brian! It would be so boring!”

“Nooo, it wouldn’t! You’re, like, the most—“

In a sweeping gesture meant to convey how Pat is _the most_ , Brian knocks a bottle over on the table loudly and immediately shrinks back and cringes as Simone turns her attention on him like a laser.

“Brian David Gilbert if you do not stop spilling drinks I am not going to let you in here anymore without a towel!”

“Sorry, ma’am,” Brian yelps, cringing as she approaches with a rag. “It’s empty though! No spill.”

“Spillbert,” Pat murmurs to himself, then sputters out a laugh.

Simone shakes her head at both of them, but seems appeased by not having to do any extra cleanup. “You’re off the hook this time. Looks like you owe your kitty a kiss, though.” She nods pointedly at the bottle, settled with its neck toward Zuko.

Brian obediently leans over and gives Zuko a nice big kiss on top of his head, getting thwapped repeatedly in the face by the flicks of his ears while doing so.

Pat groans, looking disproportionately miserable for how giggly he’s been tonight, and grabs the bottle, thrusting it out toward Simone and whining, “Get this out of here. I’m going home.”

“I’m sorry for unearthing your adolescent trauma, Patrick,” She says with a grin that suggests she’s not terribly sorry after all. “Tab?”

He nods curtly and Brian starts gathering himself to leave as well, slow and distracted while he looks between Pat and the bottle with overwhelming curiosity. He tries to scoop Zuko up but he pours out of his hands like water and instead approaches Pat, tapping at him with an outstretched paw authoritatively.

“He doesn’t trust me,” Brian says, looking sour. “He thinks I’m gonna trip.”

“I might trip too, though.”

“Yeah, well,” He says and trails off with a shrug as he gets his cloak back on.

Pat awkwardly reaches out for Zuko, unsure of how he wants to be held. It’s endearing, in a way, how bossy Zuko is even with someone who can’t understand him as clearly. Brian tries to keep his messy sentimental thoughts under control and finds this immensely easier the moment he steps back out into the cold.

It hasn’t gotten any warmer outside, but it’s stopped snowing and Brian kind of likes the sobering chill air against his face anyway. At least this time he can keep his arms inside the cloak.

After they’re a ways outside of town, he can’t contain his uninhibited curiosity any longer. “So did you have a bad time playing spin the bottle at a party or something?”

Pat groans before Brian can even finish his question, hanging his head and squirming as he walks in a way that suggests if he had his hands free he’d be fussing with his hair. “Obviously, yes.”

He doesn’t seem angry at the question, so Brian presses. “Did you have to kiss someone really spitty? Or knock your teeth together? Or, oh no, did you get turned down?”

“You sound like you’ve had some bad times yourself,” Pat says, then breathes out a laugh. “Nah, it’s nothing like that. Kind of the opposite? Everyone wanted to see what it was like, cuz I was, you know…”

“Ghosty?”

“Yeah.”

“That doesn’t sound too bad,” Brian says, imagining being fawned over. “Was it just weird having so many people interested in you?”

It takes a moment for Pat to respond, but he’s humming contemplatively so Brian knows he’s not going to try to slip out of answering. “They were just interested _because_ it was weird.”

“Oh. Ghosty?”

“Yeah. Like… The attention felt nice, I felt like I was still having a normal high school experience. But everyone was curious about how cold I was, they just wanted to try it once and move on.”

“Oh, ew. Rude.” He takes a stumble-step closer to Patrick. “Was Simone there?”

Pat scoots Zuko up on his chest more, adjusting his hold. “No, no. She would’ve probably punched someone. Or at least yelled at them.”

“Might’ve been better if she was there.”

“Yeah, probably, actually.”

They’re quiet for a while, Brian busying himself with kicking up the thin layer of snow and flinging it high with exaggerated steps.

“I still don’t really get it, though. I’ve worn mint lip balm and no one’s ever minded that.”

Pat scoffs, says, “There’s a pretty big difference between peppermint and a corpse.”

“Hey,” Brian says, stopping in his tracks and grabbing Pat’s sleeve to stop him as well. This is _important_. “You don’t feel like—that!” Even the thought of saying it feels like a cruelty. _Back up a conclusion with observations_. “You feel refreshing.”

 _No_ , says a sober voice in the back of his mind as he lets Pat’s sweater slip through his grasp, _That was not great_.

Pat looks at him, bewildered—and Brian’s about to start apologizing furiously while still trying to figure out why what he said was bad, because he knows it was somehow—but then he bursts out laughing, throwing his head back like he’s howling at the moon.

Brian laughs also, because he’s still a little confused but it seems like that’s what they're doing now.

He does trip later, closer to home, but Pat is nice enough not to laugh at that and it softens the blow of Zuko’s _I told you so_ smugness nudging at his mind.

 

The fire died sometime in the night so Brian is grateful for the mountain of blankets insulating him against the chill of the room. He catches on quickly, though, to the fact that there’s still a tangible chill.

This time he’s got his head against Pat’s shoulder, an arm draped across his chest, and a leg crossing his below the knee. He instinctively starts to pull away, when twin grumblings stop him in his tracks.

Charles is on Pat’s chest, leaning up against his arm, making small unhappy sounds as he fine-tunes his position again. Zuko has a perfect nest for himself between Pat’s legs, with Brian’s creating the final wall, and he makes it clearly known that he does not want to be disturbed again.

Brian breathes slow. He feels like an insect mounted for display, his limbs stuck outstretched. He’s definitely encroaching on Pat’s space because he’s _clearly_ not able to exercise any self-control when he’s asleep, but maybe he can be forgiven for lingering under these particular circumstances. Maybe it’s alright if he at least feels a little guilty while he’s doing it.

Truthfully, it’s been lonely here. It’s usually easy to push that aside with all of the work he has to do, and he talks to Simone and Pat regularly and exchanges letters with friends and family, but the way he keeps waking up cuddled against Pat highlights how isolated he’s felt.

His chest hurts like a chasm is opening inside of him and he could lay like this for hours and still not have sated himself. Even though everything is quiet and comfortable and soft and, still, it’s not his to have.

Pat looses a hand to pet Charles and Brian tenses immediately. “I’m sorry,” he says, voice rough with sleep, “I tried to move but they didn’t like it.”

“You’re good,” Pat says, voice more composed and wakeful.

So Brian stays, tries to memorize this moment, and they lay in silence until their cats rise to demand breakfast.

 

_It’s too late it’s too late it’s too late_

Brian can’t shake this mantra from sneaking up every time he sits down to work, no matter what the subject.

So, one morning when it feels particularly paralyzing, he drops his hands and tips the chair on its back legs and looks up at the ceiling, unfocusing his eyes in thought. Obviously, he can’t keep dividing his time like this. He needs to concentrate on one thing, have some self-discipline, and use that focus to stave off this paralyzing anxiety.

If he’s completely honest with himself, it’s a simple decision. He wants to figure out how to draw flavor out of foods and manipulate it. The possibilities are fascinating, if he can manage it. It could be a lot of fun, and it could also help a lot of people, and it would be a great challenge.

 _And it could make Pat happy_.

Maybe he could make it up to him, in this way. Prove that living here with him for the year wasn’t a bad decision after all. Endear himself in some lasting way…

And when he finally allows himself to fully consider pivoting on his original research, he breathes a sigh of relief. It’s going to be _unpleasant_ , figuring out how best to break it to Jonah through a letter. Waiting for the reply might be a little agonizing. He’ll make it up to him, though. Promise to come back around to it afterwards.

He feels, for the first time in a while, reassured in his research. Time is still decidedly not on his side, but he’s got a direction to go in and he’s finally given himself permission to barrel forward with it.

Right. He sits forward in the chair again and immediately sets to writing Jonah. He’ll finish it right away, then he can go into town to mail it off, see if Clayton has any extracts. Get vodka and vanilla beans to make his own. Order some, maybe.

Time to get to work.

 

Somehow it’s taken until this particular winter afternoon for Brian to step into Simone’s and not see the woman herself anywhere. Instead, there’s a shorter woman with her hair flopped over one side of her head, the other side undercut, counting money out of the till in the otherwise empty bar.

She’s murmuring numbers to herself, interjecting a quick, “One sec,” at a more audible volume as Brian approaches. He takes a seat off to the side and waits patiently for her to finish counting.

“Okay,” She concludes, facing him with a grin after she leaves the register. “What can I get for you?”

“Um… I was looking for Simone, is she around?”

“She stepped out for a bit but she should be back soon,” The woman says, chipper and smiling brightly. “If you don’t want to wait around I can take a message for you.”

“I’ll wait, I’m not in a rush.” The social pressure of being the only two people in the room triggers his survival instinct to keep conversation going. “I’m Brian, by the way.”

“Jenna. Can I get you anything?”

“Just water for now. Wait, no, fuck, I’m not trying to be cheap. I just don’t want to be messy when she gets here, she’ll make fun of me.”

Jenna laughs, “I believe that. Oh, you’re here with Patrick a lot, right? You’re the witch?”

He pushes his hair back. “Yeah. I thought not wearing my hat made it harder to tell. I don’t think I’ve seen you around, though?”

“I’m usually in the back,” She tips her head toward the door to the kitchen, “I just help out on the floor when Simone’s out or someone’s sick. Sometimes I come in early for prep work.”

“Oh! Your food’s really good!”

“Thanks, it’s fun to make! You should come to one of my game nights sometime before you leave. I know Simone’s tried inviting Patrick but she says he doesn’t like big social gatherings and we could always use more people.”

“I’ll try to,” he says. He’s taken aback a bit by the fact that someone would invite him to something immediately after meeting him. “It’s kind of crunch time for my magic but I’ll probably need a break at some point.”

“No pressure. It’s a good time though. Sometimes it’s just me, Simone, and Clayton so if we can get at least one more person that opens up a lot more options for us. Oh, and if you have a deck of cards you should bring that too, there’s a lot we can do with multiple decks.”

The door opens then, Simone having finally arrived. Jenna waves to her and says, “I was just telling Brian here about game nights, you should let him know when we decide on our next one.”

“Sure thing,” She says, then holds her hand out for Jenna to low-five. “Tag. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Jenna shoulders a backpack and calls a goodbye as she hurries out the door.

“So what brings you here?” Simone asks, looking over notes written next to the register and writing her own as she speaks.

“Just wanted some company,” Brian says, suddenly nervous. “If I like, spill my guts to you a little, is that something you could maybe never repeat to anyone?”

She looks at him now, smiling, “Bartenders are basically therapists in towns like this. I’m surprised I didn’t have to sign a confidentiality agreement when I got my liquor license.”

“You get this a lot?”

“Oooh yeah,” She’s grinning now, leaning in conspiratorially. “Tell Mama Simone what ails you and I’ll fix you up a potion of my own.”

“You’re a little too into this,” He says, laughing nervously and worrying at the cuff of his sweater, running his thumbnail between the rows of knit stitches.

“Yeah,” She agrees, shameless and shrugging.

“Basically,” He says, drawing out the syllables to buy himself time to compose the rest of the sentence, “I’m pretty into Patrick. Like, I want to kiss him a lot. It’s distracting.”

Her expression shifts to something sad-adjacent as she straightens up and grabs a glass and sighs quietly while she pours Brian a drink. “I hear this kind of thing a lot.”

“About Pat?” He’d believe it.

“No, just peoples’ love lives. It’s interesting stuff, but it’s hard to tell sometimes whether someone wants advice, or validation, or just to vent.” She steps out from around the counter and takes a seat next to him at the bar, setting his drink down. “What are you looking for here?”

Brian takes a sip to avoid speaking for a moment, unbalanced by her seriousness. “I guess just… You know him best, right? That’s what Tara said when I first got here. I think about him all the time and he’s kind of unavoidable, I live in his house, so I’m just thinking about how I feel constantly. And I don’t really have any outlet for that. So I thought if I could tell you, at least, it might feel less… all-encompassing.”

She hums contemplatively, nodding. “Are you thinking of saying anything to him about it?”

He looks somewhere off to the side, takes another sip. “I don’t think so. Sometimes it just feels unfair though, like… I’m deceiving him by having these feelings around him and maybe he would want to keep his distance if he knew.”

Simone takes a deep breath and then a deep sigh. “Can I be blunt?”

“Please.” _No_.

“How much longer are you here?”

“Little less than half a year.” Panic flickers anew.

“What’s on the agenda after that?”

“I’m gonna go home for a while. Figure out what I want to do from there.”

“So. If you tell him and it makes things weird, you still have all that time living together. And you can probably get past it, but it could be tense and even more distracting—I see you, anxiety witch. Or if you tell him and he feels the same way and things go well, then it’s all fine and dandy. And then you leave?”

He’s quiet for a moment, tilting his glass around to swirl the drink. “Yeah…”

Simone leans forward, softens her voice. “Brian. I’m not saying what you should or shouldn’t do. Just… think it through, please. I like you, I’m not trying to scare you off or anything. Pat’s just… he’s a stubborn motherfucker but he’s been through a lot. And he’s been more—alive?—“ She looks upward and seems to choke up a little on that word, “since you’ve been around and I can’t tell you how fucking great that is to see. Just be careful.”

It’s a lot. He knows she doesn’t mean anything bad by it, but he feels his shoulders tensing, curling under the weight of guilt, shame, selfishness, regret that he brought it up at all, _why couldn’t you just keep it to yourself_ —

“Hey!” She snaps—literally snaps her fingers in front of his face—and leans in closer to him. “It’s fine. You’re stuck in a tiny house with an attractive man, it’s _natural_.”

He smiles gently and takes the lifeline she’s thrown him. “Definitely could’ve done worse for a roommate.” After a pause, he asks, “Did you ever date him or anything.”

She fully howls with laughter, doubled over and unable to respond until regaining composure.

“I mean, I have eyes, I know he’s hot, but I have known that guy for way too long and dealt with  _way_ too much of his bullshit to even begin to consider inviting more of it into my life. We kissed a couple times in middle school at like, parties, or to see what it was like,” she shrugs, “but we were just close. Safe options, you know? I’ve always had to push him to accept anything resembling help or kindness beyond basic human decency, and that only got worse after he came back.”

“I can tell he appreciates it,” Brian says, feeling the need to vouch for Pat.

“He fucking _better_ ,” She says, rolling her eyes, then continues more sincerely. “I mean, yeah, I can too. Moreso since you got here. You’ve got him _emoting_. So I’m glad he’s finally been forced to let someone get closer to him, and I’m glad it’s been someone ridiculous like you.”

He smirks, knows she’s trying to get him to laugh. “Thanks, Simone. Sorry for putting all that on you.”

She snorts. “Don’t even worry. It’s all good material anyway, I should be thanking you.”

“Material?”

“Yeah, I write on the side. Romance novels.” She winks.

“Woah! I had no idea. How do you have the time?”

“I contain multitudes. And have a lot of gaps between customers earlier on during weekdays.”

Brian smiles. “I guess that’s my cue.”

He starts to fish his wallet from his pocket when she reaches out and taps his arm. “Don’t worry about it. Your first session is free.”

If nothing else, he’s proud of himself for making it out the door without his posture betraying the guilt still eating away at him, the fear that every kind thing he’s done has all been self-serving and either unwanted or cruel. At least he makes it to the woods before he really has to stop and breathe long, deliberate breaths.

 

One cloudy morning, Brian awakens to find that he had enough self-control in his sleep to still be on his back. He’s been trying harder to maintain that distance since talking to Simone. The surprise, though, is the cool press of Pat’s head on his shoulder, the bent arm resting on his chest, the fingers curled softly in his shirt.

He’s got his arm resting on the mattress right up against Pat’s back, but other than that he declares himself fully innocent in this scenario.

Letting his eyes flutter closed again, he turns his head just slightly, breathes in the fresh cold smell of Pat’s hair. With his glasses off, his face looks impossibly soft and serene. He savors how their points of contact are less cold. He tries to keep his chest from moving too much as he breathes. It’s probably useless with how his heart is beating.

Without anything to focus on other than the still weight of Pat’s body against his, what feels like an hour in a sleepy morning haze likely lasts only several minutes.

Pat breathes in and out once, then tenses. He starts to pull away when Brian instinctively brings his arm up around his back, gently holding him in place.

He drops his arm almost immediately, feels his face get hot as he stammers out, “Sorry,” in a sleepy morning croak. “Sorry, you can move. You just seemed—I don’t mind.

It takes a moment before the tension eases out of Pat’s body and he nods almost imperceptibly against his shoulder.

Another several minutes pass before Brian says, “Can’t believe how late you sleeping in now, farmer Pat.”

With a groan, Pat curls inward, pushing his head deeper into Brian’s shoulder and nudging their knees together. “‘S too comfy,” he slurs, sounding half-asleep still. “You’re _warm_.”

Brian laughs, feeling the weight of Pat jostle with the tremors. Emboldened, he wraps his arm around him. What a simple joy it is, to savor the feeling of Pat’s body heating under his touch. Perhaps this is alright, if his heart sings so loudly just for the chance to warm Patrick up, if his longing manifests itself softly.


	8. Winter II

“So are you going to come to Simone’s for New Year’s Eve?” Tara asks while signing out some of the library potions books.

Sheepishly, Brian asks, “When is that, exactly?”

He can hear her laughter echo while she rounds the corner to check if any mail has arrived for him. “Week from tomorrow,” she calls from the back.

Brian hangs his head and cringes, and when he looks up Tara’s holding a couple letters out toward him.

“You doing alright, there?”

“Yeah,” he says, “just feeling the time crunch. Which I guess is kind of strange when I don’t even know what day it is.”

“Long-term project management is rough,” she says. “But, if you can spare the time, you should come to Simone’s. It gets pretty crowded, but it’s a good time. It’s nice to all be celebrating something together and she knows how to throw a good party.”

“I’ll try to make it,” Brian promises. He rocks back on his feet to step away, then decides to ask, “Um, I’ve been wondering. What’s gonna happen with Pat after I leave?”

“We’re figuring something out,” She says, voice frustratingly neutral. “I’m delaying our next candidate acceptance until the fall, he’s not getting kicked out the day after you leave. Don’t worry about it, I’ve been brainstorming with him.”

“Oh. Okay. Cool.” He feels like he should say _thank you_ , but just nods instead to punctuate the end of the conversation and hurries out with his books and letters.

He feels buoyed by the reassurance that Pat’s not going to have his whole life immediately uprooted upon his departure. It assuages that particular concern enough that he can continue his regularly scheduled academic anxieties.

Walking homeward briskly to warm up, he wastes no time in tearing open the letter from Jonah to see how his change in studies has been received.

Unsurprisingly, Jonah is not _thrilled_ , but it’s only due to Brian’s familiarity with his writing that he’s able to tell. He’s been kind enough to provide Brian with a list of suggestions for how he can make amends, ranging from purchasing a new guitar for him to feeding him grapes while he lounges lakeside.

It’s more of a relief than Brian expected it to be, knowing that he hasn’t let Jonah down in a way that will damage their friendship. It’s strangely even more of a relief than the letter from his academy accepting the request to change his thesis focus.

When he finally makes it back inside the house, not even pausing outside to catch up with Pat, he’s cold enough that he almost doesn’t have to consciously shake the jars with the vanilla beans and vodka, as he’s been doing dutifully for several days according to instruction. Hopefully this will be the only reminder he needs to wear gloves.

With the year coming to a swift close, there’s less and less for Pat to do in the garden as it’s getting colder. He’s laid down straw over some areas to help insulate those plants but mentioned that soon there’ll be nothing for him to do but plan the layout for planting again. As it is, he’s been reading a lot more, often moving the chair away from the table and sitting with Charles directly in front of the stove whenever Brian isn’t using it.

Pat raps against the window pane from outside and Brian hurries over, lifting it with an effortless swipe of his hand before he can even touch it.

“I’ve got the last of the spinach and carrots ready,” he says, standing on his tiptoes and holding the edge of the windowsill as he leans in through the window. “Do you want any for tonight?”

Brian leans back and glances sideways to the kitchen before looking back down to Pat “A couple carrots would be great, thanks.”

Pat nods and makes to step away, turning around with one hand still on the windowsill for balance.

“Wait,” Brian says.

He turns back, waits attentively.

With a blank expression, Brian lays his cold hand unceremoniously on Pat’s.

For a beat of silence, Pat furrows his brow in confusion and looks quickly between their hands and Brian’s face. Then he pulls his hand away with a huff. “I’m _already_ cold,” he complains. “Get some mittens, ass.”

Brian smiles wide and he catches a hint of a smirk on Pat’s face before he turns around.

 

Laying on his belly and alternating between two potion books whenever one or the other begins to feel overwhelming, Brian jots down notes and ideas and page numbers.

“Do you think people here’d rather be warm or have good dreams?”

Pat looks up from his book in consideration and says, “Is this a philosophical question or do you need to back up a few steps?”

“The latter, sorry.” He pushes back some hair that’s flopped over his face. “I wanted to make a potion for a New Year’s gift so I’ve been trying to narrow down something simple and… useful without being too utilitarian. Like, I’m sure it’d be nice to… ward off sunburns, but that’s not very thoughtful.”

Pat leans back and cards his hair, looking up in thought. “Probably dreams, then, for everyone else. They’ve all got fireplaces and cars with heaters and warm clothes, they can figure that part out. Being guaranteed a good dream is pretty—well, magical, I guess. But if you work out how to make a warming potion that a ghost can take, you know where I live.”

“Ok, cool,” Brian says decisively. He circles one of his notes and sets one of the books aside entirely to focus on one particular recipe. Halfway through writing out conversions for a smaller recipe, he asks, “Hey, Pat, do you dream?”

“Sure do,” he answers, not looking up from his book this time.

“What kind of stuff do you dream about?”

He shrugs. “Planting, mostly. Just everyday stuff, same as everyone.”

“Makes sense.” He does another equation, then asks, “Did you dream last night?”

Pat turns away from him quickly, then gets up and gets out the jar of cat food. “Nope,” He says curtly. It’s not until he turns around and tries to walk with both Charles and Zuko winding between his legs, keeping his eyes on them instead of Brian, that he says, “Aren’t you all worried about your music stuff right now? Do you have time for a side project like that without—Charles, _please_ —without making yourself sick again?”

Brian lets his body drop fully on the bed, face nose-down on the book. “No,” he says, muffled against the pages. He turns to face Pat, the view of him all sideways. “I’m trying to find something really easy, I’m bad at potions and I just want to take one day with it. I can’t think of anything else I can do for anyone.”

“Well, I won’t spoil the surprise,” Pat promises, still not looking back at Brian. He pours food into two dishes, serious expression finally breaking as he laughs softly at both Charles and Zuko when they try to snap kibbles out of mid-air.

The rest of the night is dedicated to double-checking the math of his recipe conversions and triple-checking ingredients and instructions to make sure he can both afford the components and complete the process. It should all be over quickly and then he can get back to poring over his new flavor extracts.

It’s not that he’s trying to _deceive_ Pat, about sidelining his music studies. He just doesn’t want to get his hopes up. Or have to justify this radical change in direction. Or miss the opportunity to really knock it out of the park on the presentation of a surprise like this.

What’s it matter anyway, adding one more little _I really shouldn’t, but…_ to the pile?

 

Working on magic with Pat around more and more often is something that might have concerned Brian a few months back, but there’s a level of familiarity now, with only five days left in the year, that helps him keep his focus while Pat’s reading only a few feet away. 

Studying under these circumstances doesn’t feel as awkward as Brian would have thought it might, either. Pat doesn’t pay him any mind whether he’s building a moat around himself out of books and notes or spending hours moving his fingers imperceptibly around bottles of oils and essences and extracts. He also doesn’t seem to mind when it all gets a little overwhelming and Brian lays back, plucking at his ukulele strings softly with the pads of his fingers.

He retreats to music so often as a form of self-soothing that he realizes he probably doesn’t need to worry about Pat catching on to him. And now that he’s freed his hobby from the tethers of academia it feels exciting again.

There’s still the matter of New Year’s presents, though. Since Pat can’t use a potion, Brian’s been letting his mind wander to other options. Other _cheap_ options. Extracts, as it turns out, are quite the luxury on his budget.

He comes up with a plan, although it begins to feel like more of a _scheme_ the way he ends up having to execute it in phases.

In the scraps of time he had privacy this morning, he chose a blue shirt that had an adequate triangulation of soft-clean-old and cut it into uneven approximations of squares with too-blunt scissors.

There’s a lucky break in the afternoon the following day, when Pat goes into town and Brian has enough time to not only dig through his trunk to find the tiny emergency sewing kit, but then actually sew most of the pieces he needs together. He has to change thread colors twice before he’s done, given that the kit is likely meant for reattaching buttons, but… from the start, this project could only hope to achieve the skill level of _well, good enough_.

It’s another day before he can add rice to the square pouches and seal them up. Actually, Pat comes back when he’s nearly done with the last bit of sewing and he sneaks it into the bathroom later to finish surreptitiously, letting the shower run until he’s done sewing and actually needs to bathe.

He feels oddly proud of himself, getting any project—no matter how inexpert—done in secret. In fact, he finds that he genuinely has to hold back from immediately showing them to Pat, laying them at his feet like a cat with a dead mouse. It’s lucky that New Year’s is only three days away, or else he might wither and die from the delay of praise and validation.

 

The formula isn’t the most complicated one Brian’s had to follow—getting through that potions requirement was a pain in the ass—but it’s still unnerving to make something outside his comfort zone of practical, simple family recipes.

It doesn’t need to be made during any particular moon phase or day of the week, but it’s recommended that the process be started at 4pm sharp. This leaves a good amount of time during the day to make sure he has all of the necessary components, realize he doesn’t and hurry to the general store for dried cherries and a lemon, scale out the amounts he’s going to need for everything, find the remainder of the glass vials he has leftover from academy studies, reread the formula _again_ , and still have time to imagine all the ways in which this could fail. There are only two days left in the year. He doesn’t have the time or money for it to fail.

With a couple hours to spare, unable to concentrate on his _actual_ studying, he grabs his ukulele and heads out into the woods to find a nice spot to calm the fuck down. It hasn’t snowed again lately, but it’s still cold enough to be a merciful distraction.

He hasn’t gone all the way to the bridge much since he got sick. Mostly it’s because it’s cold and fishing would not be relaxing anymore. Partially it’s because he’s trying to stay as focused on studying as can be reasonably expected. A not-insignificant amount of the reason is because staring down into the river feels like someone is squeezing his heart with their hands.

He’s familiar enough with water, and being in water, and being bowled over by ocean waves against the relative safety of the shoreline, that his fevered drowning dream had an unusually palpable quality to it. Normally his nightmares are so much less grounded in a believable reality that they’re easy to pick apart logically and shake off, forgotten by breakfast. The primal fear of this one, though… 

No wonder Pat doesn’t like to go there. He wonders idly if he has those dreams too—but more particular, more _accurate_ —and his heart aches.

Today he only goes as far as the field. He takes a couple laps around the perimeter, intending only to do some mindless noodling but naturally finding himself earnestly belting out whatever songs catch his fancy. It’s refreshing, being able to work out all of his mental and physical nerves so efficiently, having the room to move about uninhibited and be as loud as he wants. Even though he _does not have time for this_ , he knows that he can’t not make time for this.

In a way, it’s the same reason he’s going to a party that he _does not have time for_ and making gifts that he _does not have time for_ to give to the people there. Everything here is still new enough to be exciting, and he’s busy and focused on his spellwork besides. Being apart from his friends and family hasn’t hit him nearly as hard as it could because he’s made new friends here and kept himself occupied, but he can still feel the cracks where the loneliness, now only a slow drip, will burst through given enough time.

By the time he makes his way back to the house it’s getting dark outside and he’s feeling less jittery-anxious. Zuko is resting imperiously on the chair and Pat is sitting in front of the fire, idly petting Charles in his lap. He gives a nod when Brian walks in, but returns to reading right after.

Brian lays out everything he’s going to need and cards his hair, letting out a big sigh. Zuko slinks away to give him space.

“What’s up?” Pat asks.

“Just getting _way_ more stressed out than I should about this potion. It’s not even anything that crazy! I just have a bad track record with them.”

“Anything I could help with?”

“No, I just—actually, wait, could you like… just read the formula to me as I’m going along? It would be super helpful if I didn’t have to keep stepping aside to recheck it.”

“Oh yeah, no problem.” He slides his hands under Charles, scoops him up as he stands, and moves over to sit at the desk. Charles grumbles but readjusts himself in Pat’s lap nevertheless.

“Okay, Pat Gill, if you could just count me down from about ten seconds ’til four o’clock, I’ve got the first step figured out. Just start from this point when I’m ready. Please.”

Pat nods, then keeps quiet, save for regular updates on the time while Brian adds the water for his base and grabs precise threads of cinnamon from the air to add to it. He slices the zested lemon in half and hisses out a breath when the juice stings against a cut he didn’t know he had.

“Countdown starts in five,” Pat warns him, and then they’re off.

And… it’s not horrible. The stress isn’t _gone_ , but it dissolves away bit by bit as time goes on and nothing explodes. Pat reads clearly and precisely and answers readily when Brian asks which components are involved in the next step. He keeps time between the honey additions. He lets him know, between steps, when to stop steeping the jasmine tea leaves.

There’s not much conversation between steps—Brian’s too focused to risk it—but there’s still an air of camaraderie. They make a good team, at least when it comes to tackling this particular task effectively.

When the first phase is complete, Brian pours the simmering liquid over precisely twelve lavender buds in a glass bowl and carefully pulls them one by one to the surface, keeping the rest submerged until their turn.

“Everything’s looking good so far,” he says to Pat. “Thanks a bunch. Maybe if I’d had you helping me with potions all along I might’ve turned out better at them.”

“Glad to help,” Pat says. Charles left sometime after they started, so he’s free to stand and stretch and walk over to inspect the state of the kitchen while everything is mostly-finished.

He’s staring hard at the glass bowl, eyes narrowing and head tilting and looking like he’s trying to figure out how best to react to it. Suddenly nervous that he’s slipped up in a way that only Pat can perceive, he asks, “What’s up?”

Pat turns to him and says, bluntly, “It looks like piss.”

“It looks like piss?” Brian asks, incredulous.

He turns to the bowl. The potion in its current state is a transparent yellow. It looks like piss.

Brian drags his hands down his face and groans. To his credit, it sounds like Pat is _trying_ to stifle his laughter.

“Can you make it another color? With magic?”

“I don’t know how,” Brian says, defeated. “It’s not done. Maybe it’ll take on some of the cherry color. Oh man, I can’t give this to people if it doesn’t change…”

“Sure you can, you’re a witch.” Pat says, shrugging like it’s just that easy. “Besides, if it gives them good dreams no one’s gonna care. Well. Simone’ll probably give you shit for it. But there’s not much you can do that she won’t find a way to turn on you. Or maybe that’s just with me.”

He does his best to shrug it off for now. He conjures a breeze to blow a toy mouse across the floor for Zuko and ends up keeping him and Charles entertained for the entire time he needs to wait until the next step.

Lemon zest goes into the bowl in four points in a clockwise order, then Brian stirs gently, waving his hand over the liquid until the threads of it feel adequately entangled.

With a few hours left before he can complete the potion, he sets to cleaning his cauldron with a salt scrub. He opts for a sandwich for dinner, mostly to avoid creating more dishes.

Finally, the time comes to finish up. He halves the dried cherries, stuffing each piece into the bottom of a vial. With a careful hand, he slowly suspends the liquid in midair and divides it between the vials until they’re about even, corks them, and then gives them all a good non-magical shake.

“All done?” Pat asks.

“Pretty much. It’s supposed to work best after at least twelve hours, but I should be able to notice a difference if I try it before I go to sleep tonight.” He fills the empty bowl with water and drops everything else in it to soak. “I’ve had stuff like this before so I think I can tell.”

“What’s it like?”

Brian flops unceremoniously onto the mattress, lying with his head at the foot of it. “Unusually nice. Just… quiet and nice.” He stretches his arms out over his head and lets them rest there, forearms and hands on the cold wooden floor. “I had a lot of trouble sleeping in school, sometimes. Like, if I could calm down enough to fall asleep, it’d be all stress dreams.”

“I still have those. Sometimes I’m there but no one can see me,” Pat says, and exhales a laugh like it’s a joke.

“That sounds awful,” Brian says, too-sincere to compensate for Pat’s levity. “I had variants of dream potions sometimes when the stress dreams were… unrelenting.”

“Why don’t you just take them all the time?” Pat asks.

“It feels good, but if you do it a lot it starts to feel too… synthetic? Like, you’re dictating how your brain is processing everything a little too heavily. It’s nothing damaging or addictive, but it feels more… enjoyable, in moderation. Helps the most, that way.”

“Sounds nice.”

“Yeah. I haven’t had it in a while and I’ve been feeling pretty wound up about my thesis so I’m kind of looking forward to sleeping more than usual tonight.”

He starts combing his hair upward through his fingers, utterly fucking it up. It’s so long now, it feels nice to touch. He smiles sleepily, wondering how badly it’s going to be sticking up by the time he finally stops. “What if I wear my hair like this?”

“Everyone will think it’s some mysterious witch thing. People might copy you to try to look cool.” He can hear the smile in Pat’s voice even if he can’t see it through his closed eyes.

“Oooh, you think I’m _cool_ ” He sing-songs.

“Absolutely not. I have heard too many Zuko songs for that.”

“My oeuvre is universally beloved.”

He gets only a skeptical hum in response.

“If I make a Charlie song will you copy my hairstyle?”

“You’ll have to do it for me, I can’t bring myself to ruin it like that with my own two hands.”

Brian opens his eyes, turns his head to Patrick and stretches his arms out fully before waving him in closer. Pat lies down a reasonable distance away, arms crossed politely over his belly while he waits.

Rolling over would put him so thoroughly and consciously in Pat’s space that Brian stays on his back. Just reaches out from where he’s at to brush Pat’s hat up in a vertical line from his head as best he can like this—which is to say, horribly. It fits the overall vibe of his styling, if he does say so himself.

Pat’s hair is cold, like all the rest of him, but it’s soft and runs smooth through his fingers. It’s a pleasant tactile sensation, like brushing along the grain of a yard of satin. He loses himself in thinking about all of the nice ways he could play with Pat’s hair until he realizes he’s lost just a _good_ chunk of time on this meditation.

“You ever braid your hair?” Brian asks, voice quiet in the still night.

“Nah. I used to help my sister braid hers sometimes, though.”

To his credit, he doesn’t react physically to this surprise, and keeps his voice fairly level as he asks, “You have a sister?”

“Yeah…” Pat says, trails off. He furrows his brow a bit, adding, “I don’t want to… they’re all fine. Just, not now. Please.”

“That’s fine,” Brian says, perhaps a bit too quickly, still interpreting the sentence fragments after he’s already responded. He runs his fingers through Pat’s hair a few more times to put some distance between that exchange and the present moment.

He pulls away and makes himself get up quickly, feeling a thrum of guilt over having indulged himself so much. “Hair’s looking good and not at all ruined,” he says, forced-casual. Pat stays laying down, looking for all the world asleep until he’s smirking and stretching his arms out over his head and onto the floor.

Some perfunctory cleaning of the desk space takes up enough time that Brian’s comfortable with the idea of testing out the potion and crashing for the night. He breathes out a disproportionately large sigh of relief when he finds that the cherry has indeed begun to tint all of the potions orange. One sip clears out half the vial. They’ll be three-use gifts, assuming everyone will be able to fish the rehydrated cherry out and eat that as well.

After brushing his teeth—while staring at the bathroom mirror at the hair of his reflection in abject horror—and changing into sleep clothes, he finds that Pat has, indeed, fallen asleep where he left him. Charles is curled next to him. This leaves… minimal room on the bed, but Brian manages to slip under the covers on the correct end of the mattress without disturbing either of them. Perhaps he should have woken Pat up, at least got a cover on him, but he questions his own motivations.

Zuko plants himself firmly on Pat’s pillow, lets Brian know through feelings that it is _his_ and that he hasn’t been able to use it for a while and that it’s been _difficult_ , and reaches a paw out to knead into Brian’s horribly fluffed out hair a couple of times.

Even though he’s probably going to wake up sore if he manages to stay contorted around everyone else like this, at least he’ll have minded his manners and had some good dreams—until he looks in the mirror again and regrets all of his most recent life choices.

 

The fragments of dream that Brian can recall before they dissolve into the ether are insignificantly pleasant after all: a carnival, warm yellow lights, an endless carousel, cotton candy in unknowable geometries, an atmosphere both lively and relaxed.

The waking world is pleasant as well: Zuko still beside his head, Charles between his ankles, Pat curled toward him with an arm over his leg hugging against his calf.

He manages to carefully slide his way up the mattress so that he can get up without disturbing either Pat or Charles and slips out of bed, eager to check on his potions, wrinkling his nose at the early hour on the clock as he passes by. He should’ve known, it’s still pretty dark outside. All of the potion vials have settled into a merciful sunset orange.

Satisfied, Brian pads softly back to bed with the intention of wriggling right back where he was. The thing is, Pat looks cold, curled so tightly on top of the blankets. And Brian’s sleepy still, he can _definitely_ get at least another good hour of rest in. So not making his own life more difficult by indulging his foolish heart is a mere afterthought that comes to him as he’s already moving to Pat.

He settles in right behind him, pasting himself against Pat’s back from head to toe. He’s chilly, sure—soberingly, _almost_ wakeningly cold—but he’ll warm up to an increasingly familiar cold-side-of-the-pillow temperature soon enough, if experience has taught him anything.

Brian leans away a moment, pretty sure that—yes, he very responsibly left his cloak in a pile on the floor. He grabs it, tosses it across them both as best he can from his current position, kicks it down to at least cover their feet, and then settles back in.

Pat shifts against him, briefly. Brian hums a question. Pat hums an affirmative answer, then uncoils slowly as the cold tension melts away from his body.

Later, when he wakes again, he can’t be sure if the potion’s effects carried into his dream encore or if it’s all natural.

 

New Year’s Eve is the kind of cold, cloudy day that makes you happy to be leaving it behind with all the rest of the last year. Truthfully, Brian’s had a pretty pleasant year, but something about this dreariness has him ready for a party even though he knows there’s more winter yet to come.

The daylight hours are spent studying more, feeling the air around a bottle of almond extract without actually disturbing any of its contents. The vanilla extracts are on the cusp of being ready for experimentation, but he wants to finish the last few textbook sections before diving into that because if he somehow irreversibly damages them, that’s… just a _lot_ of money wasted.

It starts to snow lightly as it gets darker and Brian surreptitiously hides the rice bags in the hood of his cloak and sets it, folded, near the fire to warm. It’s superstition to give gifts sometime before the actual new year, to believe that having some tangible kindness will help set you on a happier course through the coming months, but it’s nice to be able to give into impatience once in a while in a world that seems to run on delayed gratification.

Once it’s late enough to start getting ready to go out, Brian realizes he has to poke his head back out from his wardrobe to ask, “Is this a dress up kind of event?”

Pat narrows his eyes in thought, mouth pulled to the side. “It’s not like anyone’s going to wear a suit,” he says, “But people tend to dress nicer than usual.”

It’s been a good amount of time since Brian had to really think about an outfit, and it’s almost a welcome distraction to have an excuse to lay out his options of nicer sweaters and shirts. It’s a pity there’s no full-body mirror here. How could Tara have forgotten such an essential piece of furniture?

He finally settles on a soft cabled forest green sweater over a grey collared shirt and the cleanest pants available at this time. He nods to himself in the bathroom mirror, but still walks out and asks Pat, “Is this okay?”

Pat makes a show out of evaluating him for an answer—puts his thumb and forefinger to his chin and everything—and circles him like a vulture before stepping back and giving him a straight-faced, “Acceptable.”

Brian rolls his eyes and fakes wiping sweat from his brow with an exaggerated sweep of his arm. “So what are you wearing, Fancy Man Pat Gill?”

Pat shrugs and walks over to the corner with his clothes to inspect them. When he stands, he’s holding a collared shirt barely distinguishable from the one he has on now. Brian gives him a skeptical look, so he turns around and picks up a jacket as well, raising his eyebrows and giving him a look like he’s suggesting that Brian would be crazy to question this daring new ensemble.

“I like that you’re branching out from your comfort zone,” Brian says, humoring him before deciding now’s as good a time as any to get his cloak ready.

He stands with his back to Pat for a moment once he’s got the cloak on. The rice bags are sufficiently warmed, so now it’s all down to presentation.

“Hey Pat,” he says, turning his head, “close your eyes and hold out your hands.”

“That sounds extremely suspicious,” Pat says, closing his eyes and holding out his hands.

As soon as Brian’s places a rice bag in each hand he says, “Happy New Year, Pat Gill.”

The moment the heat touches his hands Pat’s eyes open and he’s bouncing the rice bags in his hands lightly with a goofy smile.

“They’re hand warmers,” Brian elaborates. “There’s rice in them so if you just stick them near a fire they’ll warm up.”

“Thank you,” Pat says, meeting his eye with a huge smile, his cheeks dimpling. So often his smiles are small, wry things pulled off to one side like he’s trying to tuck them away. The full force of his unguarded joy is so bright, Brian finds it hard to stare at directly without his face getting hot and his eyes averting.

Brian’s still red-faced as he smiles through his _your welcome_ s and _glad you like it_ s, loops a scarf around his neck, and pulls his shoes on. He looks to Zuko but before he can even ask, he feels a firm dismissal. He places his hat atop his familiar in response and leaves it there for the night.

Once all of the potion vials are tucked securely into the loops inside his cloak, Brian makes exactly one bad joke about selling shady wares before Pat removes a hand warmer from one of his jacket pockets and winds up like he’s going to throw it. Laughing together, they set off into the night.

The slow-falling snowflakes are big and fluffy, sticking to the ground but not in volumes large enough to impede a normal walking pace. Brian entertains himself by gathering snowflakes up in a suspended ball, waving it through the air to pick up more as he goes.

Pat keeps his hands shoved in his pockets, a private smile on his face while he keeps his eyes on the ground in front of him.

They can hear the music pouring out from Simone’s from a block away and Brian perks up, walks a little faster with a bounce in his step like he’s trying to hold himself back from running. Pat just laughs and walks with wide steps to keep up without having to risk anyone seeing him show _enthusiasm_.

It’s been crowded inside Simone’s before, but the holiday has taken it to a level Brian had not yet seen. All of the tables in the center of the room have been pushed to the sides and several have been lined up along one wall to display a spread of snacks. The radio pointed toward the cracked-open door, like an aural beacon, is just-barely audible from inside over the din of the crowd all chatting and laughing and exchanging gifts with those they hadn’t seen until now.

Jostled by the crowd, Pat bumps into Brian and steadies himself with a warm hand on his back. Brian tries to keep that warmth from taking root and growing through his bones.

“Simone!” Pat calls, waving his arms over everyone and interrupting whatever conversation she was having to get her attention. When she looks back in pleasant surprise, Pat rests his hands on Brian’s shoulders and maneuvers him gently toward her through the crowd.

“And you said you couldn’t drive,” She says to Pat, wagging a finger at him.

“Easier to get by people when you’re steering someone else into them,” He says. “Happy New Year.”

“Happy New Year,” Brian echoes, reaching his hand out from underneath his cloak with one of the vials. “Have a genuine three-use good dreams potion!”

“Oh shit, happy New Year to _me_!” Simone takes the vial, holding it up to the light to admire it. “Thanks, Brian! Patrick, your offering?”

“All the free shit I give you year-round?”

She shoves his arm with a smirk on her face and says, “Well, my gift to everyone in this room is that I’m working ’til eleven and cleaning up tomorrow, so you’re welcome.”

As if on cue, Jenna pokes her head through the order window and announces—much more cheerfully— “Mine too!”

Brian helps himself to the space behind the counter, reaching through the window to give a vial to Jenna. “For the last dose, you eat the cherry,” He tacks onto the explanation.

“That’s super cool! I’m just cleaning up,” Jenna says, “When I’m done I wanna know what’s in here!”

He gives her a thumbs up, then slips back into the crowd before Simone has a chance to turn around and scold him for trespassing.

It’s only been a minute or two, but Pat’s wandered over to another corner of the room either by choice or by the sea change whims of the crowd. He’s easy to spot at least, a bright, cold, lean shock amongst the room of colorful, lively celebrants. It’s easy to make his way determinedly through the crowd drawn to that light. Brian’s relieved to find him smiling and chatting with Clayton, who seems to have staked out a quiet refuge sitting atop a table by the wall.

“Pat Gill, please do not leave me alone in this crowd again,” He asks, laughing to undercut the sincerity of the plea. “Hey, Clayton.”

Clayton waves, gives him a kind, “Hey,” back.

“Sorry,” Pat says, eyebrows raised. “I didn’t know you minded.”

He shrugs. “Sometimes I don’t, turns out it’s just a lot right now. Clayton, I’m _really_ happy to see you found a reasonable place to hang out.”

Before Brian can fish a vial out from his cloak, Clayton’s rummaging through his bag and pulling out a jar. “I don’t want to have to yell,” he says, sounding like he’s having to yell a bit anyway. He holds the jar out to Brian with a smile and a, “Happy New Year! It’s an apple butter.”

Brian lifts the jar to inspect it admiringly. “This is awesome, thanks!”

“Of course. I have jams and marmalades too, if you’d rather, but I figured since Pat said you liked applesauce so much that would be the way to go.”

He’s surprised enough by the _since Pat said_ that he doesn’t even think to qualify his level of interest in applesauce. Instead, he turns to Pat, who is smiling blankly and keeping his eyes determinedly on Clayton.

“Oh,” Brian says, jostling himself out of his moment of confusion, “Right, sorry, happy New Year, Clayton! It’s a potion for good dreams.”

Clayton looks at it appreciatively, either genuinely impressed or at least polite enough to appear to be. “This is great, thank you. How do I use it?”

“Just a sip before bed. There should be two sips, and then you can eat the cherry for a third dose.” The instructions are becoming mechanical at this point.

They ease into smalltalk for a while and Brian eventually removes his cloak, opting to hold the last vial until he can spot Tara rather than sweat under the heavy layer. When he does manage to pick her out, she seems to have made herself at home near the snack tables, not showing the signs of someone who’s planning on working a room.

“You want to head over there?” Pat asks, quiet and suddenly closer to Brian’s ear than he’d noticed.

He freezes, but doesn’t jump, and nods quickly to cover it. “Yeah, I’ve gotta give Tara the last potion. Clayton, do you want any snacks?”

“Maybe…,” He looks up thoughtfully, “fruit?” He laughs, then. “I don’t know, just get me some of whatever you grab.”

Brian takes the lead as they traverse the room, unsure of Pat’s ability to move by everyone assertively without using too much pressure. When he looks back now and then to make sure they haven’t been separated, Pat’s always got his hand up, like he’s ready to reach out to Brian if he’s about to be left behind. It does something fluttery to his heart, and he needs a drink _fast_ to calm down and excuse the flush on his face.

Thankfully, he only has to lurk at the edge of Tara’s posse for a brief amount of time before she acknowledges him, excusing herself from the current conversation.

“Brian, glad you could make it!” She seems more relaxed than he’s seen her before, probably due to his never having seen her outside of a professional capacity.

“Yeah, thanks for inviting me,” Brian says. He hands her the vial and gives his well-practiced instructional spiel, relieved to have finished his quest for the evening.

“This is so cool,” She says, smiling and slipping the vial into her purse. “Thank you. And a happy New Year to you, too.”

She hands him a small box, and he lifts the lid to find stationery with the screen print of a deer silhouetted between two trees at the top of the pages of letter paper.

“I figured I’d save you a few envelopes,” Tara says with a wink, accepting his thanks silently and stepping back into her circle with an air of finality.

A quick pass by the food tables, a couple of drinks, and a less harrowing journey across the room later, buoyed by the lightness of having finished his final responsibility this year, Brian sinks heavily into a chair at Clayton’s table and picks over french fries with him and passes time more easily than he would have expected simply trading stories of their years with him and Patrick.

At eleven o’clock sharp, Simone and Jenna burst forth from the kitchen, whooping loudly to celebrate their freedom from service for the remainder of the night.

Simone climbs up to stand on a bar stool, belatedly cautious of her skirt. “There is _one glass_ of champagne per person, self-serve, behind the bar. It is not my fault if you drink it early because you have no self-control! If you steal a second one I will _ruin_ your next year.” She casts a stern warning glare around the room. “Let’s party!”

The crowd applauds and laughs politely, everyone seemingly aware that she is absolutely serious.

Jenna and Simone both find their way to Clayton’s corner, after one or the other turns the music up, pulling up chairs until he feels self-conscious about being the only person sitting on top of a table and grabs one as well in spite of their reassurances.

Someone mentions the snow—Brian’s lost the thread of the conversation a little bit—and then Jenna mentions an apparent ice storm they’d had last winter.

“I was born in an ice storm,” Brian says, feeling immediately self-conscious for having contributed that.

“Woah, is that some kind of witch thing?” Jenna asks. “Do you have ice powers?”

“No… that would be way cooler,” Brian admits. “It’s not a witch thing, either. I guess it does sound pretty auspicious, though.”

“It does,” Simone agrees. “Like, your parents shaped a baby out of snow and then it came to life in the storm.”

“If that were the case I would feel pretty cheated, not having ice powers.”

“When is your birthday?” Clayton asks.

“End of the month,” Brian says, casual.

“We have to do something!” Simone says, leaning in and smacking her palms against the tabletop for emphasis.

“Game night! Brian, do you want to come over for a game night?” Jenna asks.

He smiles, soaking in the friendship. “I mean, yeah, but you have to promise to never, _ever_ tell my sister or friends back home. I have big plans to milk the ‘lonely birthday away from everyone’ thing for all it’s worth next year,”

Everyone laughs and agrees to swear to secrecy and Pat’s just quiet, smiling soft and lopsided, openly watching Brian. He responds when prompted, looks at other people when they’re speaking, but his eyes keep drifting back to see how Brian’s reacting, to hear his response. The attention that felt withering in Summer now feels intoxicating.

Now and then, Simone turns—giving no warning to her party—and shouts the minutes remaining in the year into the void. At five minutes ’til, some people begin to grab their champagne flutes to fill them eagerly only to realize they’ve got a lot longer to hold them than they bargained for.

At three minutes, Simone and Jenna, who have sworn off working the rest of the evening, retrieve drinks for the rest of their table nonetheless.

At two minutes, Simone cranks the volume of the radio so that everyone can hear when the countdown begins.

At one minute, Brian can’t stand sitting still anymore, the infectious thrumming energy of the party sending him jumping to his feet, buzzing with anticipation. Pat stands beside him, much more composed but seeming to take amusement in how everyone’s getting swept up in the celebration. Everyone else is standing soon thereafter.

At thirty seconds, Brian says, “Here,” and reaches out to start plucking at the air over Pat’s glass in quick, staccato motions like the bubbles are making his movements pop. He’s feeling wildly keyed up, suddenly overwhelmed with energy, trying to stand still and work quickly and not focus on the press of the room and how close he is, really, to Pat.

He couldn’t have predicted how this last year would have gone, no matter how hard he tried. He’s just no good with divination. He can’t predict what will happen this next year either. It’s terrifying and exhilarating and so immediately overwhelming. He feels so profoundly that he does not know what is about to happen.

At ten seconds he begins chanting with everyone else, shooting some sidelong glances to the group but continuing to face Pat, hand at the ready over his glass.

At five seconds he can feel his heart pounding, finds himself swallowing nervously, and Pat’s looking at him with so much focus he doesn’t know what to do with it—

At three seconds he braves a big smile, roots his feet firmly to the ground, lets the crescendo of the room build around and inside of him—

At two seconds, Pat looks like he’s about to say something after the count, his mouth closing around the purse of the vowel and stuttering open again and then closing just as quickly—

At one second, Brian feels a shock of adrenaline as Pat steps forward, almost imperceptibly, moves into his space like the preface of a deliberate action and—

The room explodes into cheers around them, almost enough to drown out the soaring rush of anticipation that Brian feels, and the immediate crash when nothing comes of it. When it was surely all something he imagined, reading signals that weren’t there, getting caught up in the idea of a moment.

It’s not a ruined moment, though. He brushes his feelings off quickly, thinks of Simone and everyone else _right there_ , clinks his glass against Pat’s with a private, “Happy New Year, Pat,” shouted over the bittersweet folk instrumental ushering in the new year. He takes a sip from his glass, then presses Pat’s champagne lightly into his breastbone, pushing himself back a half-step with the gesture.

Pat relaxes visibly with the champagne and runs a wavering hand through his hair, giving Brian a small smile tugged off to one side and a smaller, “Happy New Year, Brian.”

Their friends break in on their private reverie with greetings and well-wishes and half-known lyrics. It’s easy to move past whatever fanciful notions Brian may have considered entertaining moments ago, to sidestep, for now, the crushing embarrassment of having _thought_ Pat was— It’s easy to dive into the safe distraction of celebration.

And yet the fact remains that everyone either has a job to do tomorrow or doesn’t want to waste their day off suffering through a miserable recovery. The night draws to a rapid conclusion with Simone and Jenna reassuring everyone that they can just leave everything be and it’ll all be taken care of the next day, but that they should _absolutely_ all leave so they can lock up and go home..

“But you’re all welcome to come back and help,” Simone adds with a smirk, not truly asking that of anyone.

Brian fastens his cloak tight around his neck and still shivers when they step outside, the snow having accumulated enough to afford him the opportunity to leave a decent footprint. He notices with a surprised delight that Pat does not sink into the snow as far and wonders how light he would be, if he were to lift him.

Pat’s got his hands in his jacket again, though the hand warmers have surely lost all residual heat by now.

Quietly, still humming and singing snatches of a medley of songs most recently heard on the radio, Brian draws threads from the cinnamon stick tucked inside an interior pocket of his cloak. He goes overboard, decides to nearly strip the poor thing, gets too hot in the process and is sweating by the time he stops.

He’s trailing behind Pat slightly anyway, the snow hindering his steps, so he takes advantage of the situation and unclasps his cloak quietly, slipping it off as smoothly as he can and creeping up behind Pat like he’s going to toss a net over him.

And instead, of course, he flings the cloak clumsily over his shoulders in an awkward not-embrace, laughing with triumph over his relative success—even if it’s askew, it didn’t fall in the snow.

“Happy New Year,” He yells into the woods, sprinting forward and grinning out into the night.

Pat’s laughing at him, fumbling with the clasps on the cloak a moment before he’s able to brush his hair back. “Now I’m oh-and-two on New Year’s gifts,” he says, joking-guilty.

“ _You_ are a gift, Pat Gill.” It’s true, it’s genuine and sincere, but it’s masquerading as teasing banter. Plausible deniability is everything on a night when Brian is apparently so mixed up and hopeful that he’s letting his imagination get the better of him.

“And _you_ are— just a real loud ray of sunshine in the middle of the night,” Pat says, leaning into the teasing.

Brian’s sure he’s asking him to calm down in his indirect way and he can’t help but ignore it, conjuring an orb of light and singing and twirling and distracting himself with perpetual motion all the way home.


	9. Winter III

It’s well-past Brian’s birthday when everyone does finally end up committing to a date for game night, and he’s even polite enough not to spearhead the efforts himself. He really _had_ planned to refrain from bringing it up at all, to use it as an excuse to go all-in next year, but he’s confident he’ll be able to play that role regardless. Truthfully, he knows he won’t have to strong-arm anyone into celebrating with him, but the dynamic of him-cajoling them-relenting is a pillar of his friendships, even if it isn’t load-bearing.

Simone, in all of her grace and mercy, had offered to drive them to her house rather than make them trudge through the snow.

“Aren’t we going to Jenna’s?” Brian had asked, knitting his eyebrows in confusion.

“Yeah, she’s renting a room at my place,” Simone had answered, sounding confused as to how Brian had not somehow intuited this.

So Brian makes the executive decision to leave his heavy cloak behind for the evening, hugging Zuko tight before he leaves and bursting into goosebumps beneath his sweater while he dashes from the front door to the safety of Simone’s truck.

He sits in the center, wiggling and letting his teeth chatter audibly while he mutters, “C’mon, c’mon,” at Pat, who cannot hear him because he is shutting the front door and walking at a normal pace, hands jammed into his pockets, to join them in the truck.

“First off,” Simone says, “Brian, happy birthday. Pat, you’re here too. That being said, I hope you motherfuckers are ready to be annihilated.”

“You know, I really regret turning down your other invitations,” Pat says.

“Aren’t you supposed to let me win?” Brian asks with a sly intonation.

“Oh, honey,” she says pityingly, “all’s fair in love and war.”

Brian and Pat both have their hands politely folded in their laps, making themselves small and allowing for as much personal space as one can when sitting three-across in a truck. They laugh nervously, and Brian takes it upon himself to turn the radio up.

 

Despite the intensity of Simone’s declarations, the atmosphere of game night is exceedingly pleasant and downright casual. Clayton’s sunk back in a cushy armchair when they arrive, laughing with Jenna through mouthfuls of chips. There’s an array of options on the table in front of them, decks of cards and wood blocks and elaborate game boards the likes of which Brian has never seen before.

Jenna launches herself up off the couch with a delighted, “Brian!” and throws her arms out to hug him, hesitating a moment until she sees that he’s smiling and holding his arms out as well. “Thanks so much for coming out here,” she says, then turns to Pat and smiles brightly at him and adds, “You too, Pat. It’s good to see you!”

He smiles politely and nods and returns the pleasantries, but he still positions himself subtly behind Simone. If she notices, she does nothing to expose him physically or verbally.

Clayton, for his part, sits up straighter and waves and adds a happy birthday to Brian before holding out the bowl of chips to him in offering.

“I’m gonna grab a couple chairs,” Simone announces, disappearing from view and leaving Pat socially unmoored.

With a deep breath, Brian steps closer to him as casually as he can and tosses him a lifeline. “Pat, what kind of games do you like?”

“Oh, uh,” Pat startles and brushes his hair back. “Collaborative games, with like, teams. Or strategy games. Or skill. I guess— I guess that’s probably every game.”

“It doesn’t narrow down our options,” Clayton muses, “but it does increase the likelihood of picking something everyone likes.”

“Let’s play some of the stuff we don’t usually have enough people for,” Jenna says, sounding like she’s approaching this with scientific precision. She moves the block tower box to underneath the table and eyes the remaining choices critically.

Jenna’s still culling their options when Simone returns with a sturdy dining chair in each arm. Pat springs away to help her when she clatters into a door frame with a sharp swear and then he and Simone set them down across from the couch, which she flops onto with a force that bounces her.

It’s as if they’ve all decided to wait until Brian is seated and has just stuffed his mouth to capacity with chips before they ask him to make the first choice.

“Mm!” He shouts through his closed mouth, waving his hands in a frantic _hold on, hold on, i’m chewing, please wait_ flurry before he’s got enough down that he can cover his mouth politely and say, “show me the solitaire one.”

Brian catches onto the rules of the strange, fast-paced competitive solitaire fairly quickly, but not enough to come close to defeating Jenna. There’s a lot of screaming and swearing and accidentally slapping someone who puts their card down just before yours. So, really, a great time.

He thinks he’s starting to get the hang of it during the second round, starting to develop a _strategy_. But then he notices Pat’s hesitance one moment and it stalls his movements and then the rhythm of the game is gone. It makes sense, that he wouldn’t want to dive into a game where he’s liable to get his fingers smacked through in the flurry of movement.

When Simone’s done crowing about her victory and inviting several of her guests to “suck it”, Brian casually suggests something more strategic.

“We have this one,” Clayton says, unearthing a box from the stack nearest him, “but it’s a team game and there’s an odd number of us.”

“What if—“ Simone says, looking around to make sure everyone’s hooked before continuing, “we play with Jenna and Clay on one team, and the rest of us on another team, but they have to do what I say?”

Jenna claps her hands together with a definitive, “Yes!”

Clayton looks upward with a _this might work_ nod.

Pat immediately tilts his head and faces her with a critical grimace and a circumspect, “ _Simone_ —“

And Brian… well, Brian’s curious about how that would work, and it would remove the burden of responsibility from his shoulders, and surely it would lead to some good old-fashioned ribbing. And he’d be on a team with Pat. So… “Yeah sure, let’s try it.”

It doesn’t take long for Clayton to get the board set up, and by the time Simone’s coming back from the kitchen with a round of drinks for everyone he’s already giving Brian and Pat a quick, if not entirely necessary, summary of the gameplay.

Simone steps between Brian and Pat’s chairs and places her hands on their shoulders. “My beautiful sons,” she addresses them, looking between the two before drawing her gaze upward, “my two sons, my two grown sons who I command!”

“So,” Clayton interrupts, authoritatively quiet, “Jenna and I are up first.”

Generally, at least when Brian is present, Pat is playing the straight man to Simone’s more expressive and occasionally vulgar antics. So it’s a surprise—a pleasant one, in fact—to see him yes-and-ing her and calling her _Mother_ in an almost-stilted voice and playing verbal chicken with her on this bit. He’s even smiling, though he keeps his eyes on the board like he’s trying to hide it.

Of course, Brian plays along too, but for the most part he’s keen on observing the way that, between egging each other on, Simone’s getting Pat deeper into actually playing and in turn, he’s couching his strategies in this strange tactical mother-may-I that leaves everyone doubled over in breathless laughter with the audacity of their quips and jabs.

Somehow, they win. Jenna and Clayton accept the loss gracefully, and Simone accepts the win only slightly less so. While the three of them are laughing and recounting highlights and thought processes during the game, Pat’s still grinning wide and smiling, and when he turns to Brian he stays smiling, smooths his hair back, and nods in a general expression of _we did it!_.

“Can’t believe you ended up as Mother’s favorite son at my birthday party,” Brian whines at him, smiling back and clearly unbothered.

Pat shrugs him off, “Sorry, I’m the favorite.”

“Hey,” Jenna cuts through all other conversation, “let’s eat some cake before we start anything else.”

“Oooh,” Brian trills, “I was not expecting cake!”

“I know you said no presents because you don’t want _evidence_ ,” Jenna says, complete with air quotes, “but it’s not a birthday without a dessert.”

“Seriously,” Simone says, already up and midway to the kitchen, “Jenna cannot be convinced to half-ass anything.”

“In this house, we whole-ass,” Jenna says proudly, hurrying after Simone and the clatter of opening drawers and clinking plates.

“I brought some candles, if you want to do that,” Clayton says, rising unhurriedly from his comfortable chair.

“Yes, of course,” Brian says, offering him a hand to help the rest of the way. “Thank you.” He turns toward the kitchen and says, louder, “thank you!”

Jenna busies herself with putting an insignificant number of candles in a nice even array over a small cake that’s frosted white and garnished with strawberries on top.

“Oh, nice, strawberries are my favorite,” Brian says.

“Yeah,” Simone says, looking at him, “Pat told us.”

Brian feels his face flush a bit and he holds surprised eye contact with Simone as long as he can bear before turning back to the cake. He’s curious to see if Pat’s reacted, but doesn’t want to check when his own response is so visibly obvious.

“Where do you guys keep a lighter,” Clayton asks, rummaging around on the countertops.

“Oh, I’ve got it,” Brian says. He knits his brows in concentration—this one’s a little tricky for him—and closes his fingers all to a point a couple times before successfully conjuring a small flame above them. Slowly, carefully, he spreads his fingers apart again and splits the flame five ways.

“That is so cool,” Jenna says with open awe. She hasn’t seen him do much magic yet, he supposes.

“I can’t believe you’re not walking around doing that all the time,” Clayton says as Brian carefully lights the candles, then shakes the flames out with a flick of his wrist.

“You should see him at home,” Pat says, “he does the most random badass shit.”

Brian runs a hand through his hair and exhales in a shaky laugh and says, “Flattery, Patrick,” to try and deflect from the way his heart swells around the word _home_ and the casual praise and how grateful he is that Simone’s flicked the light off and everyone’s started singing and there’s no time to overreact further to some innocuous remark.

He hasn’t thought of a wish ahead of time, only realizes he’s ritualistically expected to do make one moments before it’s supposed to happen, so he’s not able to formulate a coherent full-sentence wish so much as a simultaneous word cloud of hopes.

_Thesis-Hold-Successful-Patrick-Time-Happy-Kiss-Pass-Warm-Okay-Flavor-L—_

Everyone applauds when the candles go out and for a moment the room is dark save for the light of Pat in his peripheral vision.

The cake, as it turns out, is an airy vanilla cake—Jenna calls it _chiffon_ —with a whipped cream frosting and strawberry slices inside. Even with the four of them each taking a large helping, half the cake remains, waiting.

Pat opens a beer while everyone’s digging in and perches standing against the counter that Brian’s sitting up on, holding out to him with a silent request.

Brian stuffs another forkful of cake into his mouth and then moves his free hand to oblige Pat, faster with this magic every time. “This really is great, Jenna,” he says through a full mouth.

“Yeah, we’ve gotta start having more birthdays,” Simone says, leaning against the doorframe.

“Thanks, everyone,” Jenna says with a proud smile, shimmying excitedly while she stands against the refrigerator. “Sorry if I derailed things a little bit.”

“I’ve always liked the kitchen phase of parties,” Clayton says, the only person in the room sensible enough to sit in a chair

Conversation flows onward and although everyone is eyeing the cake continuously, it’s with a look of full-bellied longing. Pat’s become quiet again, but he’s still smiling and laughing along with everyone, responding when appropriate, and leaning back slouched cool with his elbows on the counter just… so close, but not touching, and it’s only a little distracting. A little maddening.

It’s hard not to feel echoes of the same thrill and shame Brian felt at the new year whenever they’re this close around other people. 

“Let’s get one more game in, at least,” Simone suggests long after everyone’s finished eating, taking it upon herself to rally the troops once more.

“Nah,” Patrick says, grinning ear to ear at her.

Brian thwaps his shoulder lightly with the back of his hand, “We are _guests_ , Patrick.”

“Come on, we’ll let you pick,” Jenna offers.

Pat relents, shoving himself up off the counter and walking in a quick circle to collect everyones’ plates and forks before leaving to peruse the options.

Everyone files out after him and takes their seats once more, while Pat is already busying himself with shuffling a well-worn deck of cards.

“You played bullshit before, Brian?” Pat asks.

He shakes his head and everyone takes turns chiming in with rules, but it’s a pretty simple game. You put down cards from your hand that are the same, one below or one above the previous card; you lie if you have to or if you think you can get away with it; you call someone out if you think they’re lying and if you’re correct, they pick up the discard pile, and if _you’re_ wrong, you do. First one to empty their hand wins.

Brian is thrilled to be able to put his lying chops to use, to sow seeds of suspicion among his friends in a harmless, if mischievous way. It’s exciting and entertaining even when his accusations prove false or when he gets caught in a lie.

In spite of having chosen the game, Pat proves to have the worst poker face of all time. It’s possible he could have gotten away with it a few times were it not for Simone commentating on how uncomfortable or suspicious he looks. And yet, miraculously, he’s still smiling through all of his failed attempts to put more cards down.

It makes the payoff that much sweeter when he snatches victory right out of Simone’s hand, when he yells, “Oh, bull _shit_!” and she wails in agonized defeat, scooping up the enormous discard pile.

Clayton wins, eventually, but the winner is almost inconsequential. The game could be infinite and it would be just as entertaining, sweeping everyone up in joy and laughter and playful upset.

By the time everyone makes to leave, hugging each other in turn, Brian’s belly is sore from laughing.

Jenna hugs him tight with one hand, then passes him the boxed up leftover cake and asks him to join them again. Clayton gives him a light, polite embrace until Brian squeezes him in extra hard and he laughs and puts more feeling into it. Simone crushes him in her arms, ruffling his hair irreparably.

And, well, it’d be silly to wake up wrapped around someone—or with them laying half on top of you or with your legs entwined below the knees and your arms sprawled out like you were reaching for them in your sleep—if you couldn’t give them a friendly hug at a party. So Brian hugs Pat, politely refraining from using much pressure, and suppresses the way it sends a shiver down his spine.

Simone drives them back home, the two of them singing along with the radio while Pat taps and nods along rhythmically, and Brian manages to find room in his stomach to accommodate just a bit more cake before he crashes into satisfied slumber.

 

Weeks later, snow has become as steady a fixture in Brian’s life as hours spent feeling over bottles of extracts and nightly games with Pat breaking in a new deck of cards.

Pat seems to think it’s funny, the way Brian grumbles and sinks deeper into the powdery fresh snow when they go into town now. He’s leaned his arm casually on Brian’s head while they’ve stopped to rest on more than one occasion, laughing even while stepping back to easily dodge Brian’s half-hearted attempts to shove him into snowbanks. He does offer to make more solo trips into town, at least, picking up whatever he can carry from the market.

“Clayton’s gonna be bringing by some seeds and supplies tomorrow afternoon,” Pat says one evening after coming back in from town. “I’m probably going to need the space in here to sort things out, do you have anything you could do for a couple hours?”

“Oh, yeah, of course,” Brian says automatically. It’s the first time Pat’s asked him, even politely, to _leave_ since he got here. Even if he doesn’t really have anything that needs to be done, he feels the startled need to make himself scarce as requested.

He certainly didn’t—and he sure hopes Pat didn't either—expect to wake up to a steady, hard snowfall coming down.

Pat looks agitated, checking out the window frequently and sighing each time. Eventually he tries to distract himself by playing with Charles. He seems to try to get Zuko to join in, speaking quietly to him, but all Brian can pick up is, “please.”

“Now a good time to leave?” Brian asks, already fastening his cloak.

“Yeah,” Pat says, checking the clock. “Just uh… here, do you want to borrow the hand warmers?”

Brian smiles fondly. “No thanks, Pat Gill, I’ve got magic hands.” He wiggles his fingers demonstratively.

Zuko curls around his legs unexpectedly before he sets out, but Brian wastes no time in scooping him up and holding him inside the cloak, letting his head pop out over the neck fastening.

It’s a slow journey into town, so at least that will help with killing time. Near the end of the long road, he makes eye contact with Clayton turning his truck cautiously toward the witch house and making his way by slowly. They wave briefly, politely, then continue focusing on moving forward in their opposite directions.

Brian takes this opportunity to return the last of his library books. He glances perfunctorily at the rest of the library, smiles fondly running his fingers past _Sericulture for Beginners_ , and decides to refrain from checking out anything else that might distract him from his studies.

“You gonna head back soon?” Tara asks him on his way out, petting Zuko through the top of his cloak obligingly.

“Yeah, just gonna grab something to drink at Simone’s,” He shrugs.

“Don’t stay out long,” She warns, “radio said this is gonna pick up into a blizzard and keep going all night.”

“Oh, uh… how bad is it supposed to be,” he asks, trying to remember how much food he has at home.

“At least a foot,” she says, looking at him with concern. “Do you want a ride back?”

“No,” he says, shaking his head, “I won’t stay out long. Promise.”

“Okay,” she relents. “Your school probably won’t like it if I let you die here, so please try not to, city boy.”

“Well, in that case…,” he says, leaving with a smile and a wave.

Simone’s is surprisingly empty when he gets in, only a few scattered customers remain at this point and they seem to be finishing up their business here.

“Hey,” she greets him with a startled tilt of her head. “It’s getting pretty nasty out there, you planning on spending the night holed up here?”

“No,” he says, settling onto his usual seat at the bar and unfastening his cloak for Zuko, “I didn’t know it was going to be getting worse until Tara told me just before this. I just wanted to stop by before I go back. Rest for a minute.”

“You want a hot chocolate?”

“Is that a genuine option or are you teasing me?”

She laughs, “No, it’s real! Jenna made a batch earlier. I’m closing up, like, as soon as everyone is done here and I’d like to use it up.”

“In that case I absolutely want a hot chocolate. And some water for Zuko, please.”

Simone leaves to close out a tab and returns minutes later with a bowl of water and a mug of hot chocolate. “I’m not in the mood to make whipped cream right now,” she says by way of non-apology.

Zuko hops up onto the counter and laps at his water appreciatively while Simone pets down the length of his back.

“Not a problem,” Brian says after taking a sip, “it’s good without.”

“How come you’re out in this storm?”

“Didn’t know it was gonna be bad. No reception, remember?”

“Right, right. Are you gonna be able to get back okay? I could try to give you a ride but I’m a little nervous about my truck on your road in this.”

“I’ll be fine, honestly. I’m going to leave when I’m done with this.”

She looks up like an alarm’s gone off, her service radar pinging as the only other remaining customer finishes up, and she leaves without explanation to take care of them.

Brian sighs heavily, not looking forward to walking home, and downs the rest of his hot chocolate before scooping Zuko up again. He approaches Simone at the register, but she shoos him off with hardly a passing glance.

He’s halfway out the door before she calls out, “Be safe!”

He actually _is_ out the door when he hears the ringing bell of it opening behind him and Simone’s poking her head out calling, “Hey! Do you want this?”

She’s holding out an open bottle of wine and Brian must look as bewildered by this as he feels because she adds, “It’s open—half left—I don’t want to finish it or store it. You could mull it. Or stage a murder scene, get the snow all red.”

He smiles, wrinkling his nose, and thanks her while he figures out how to handle both a cat and a bottle before setting off once more.

Before he even gets to the road home he pulls a few strands from the new cinnamon stick in his cloak. At least with his hands busy holding Zuko and the neck of the wine bottle he’s not tempted to fuss with the passing snow and let his hands get cold.

Snow has accumulated over the tire tracks Clayton’s truck left, but it’s at least a more condensed surface to walk down on the way back. The way everyone had been talking, Brian was wondering if they expected him to be trudging through drifts up to his knees. Zuko feels this thought and responds with displeasure.

A little more than halfway back, a deer steps out from the woods to cross the road. Brian stops in his tracks and tries to hold his breath. It doesn’t pause, doesn’t even seem to notice him there, just continues on its own way through the snow. He stays still a moment even after it’s passed before Zuko shifts restlessly.

There’s no truck in sight in front of the witch house when Brian arrives, so he’s at least spent an adequate amount of time away. He’s relieved not to have to make himself scarce any longer. His face is too cold, reddened by the sting of snow, and his body’s sweaty from exertion, and he cannot wait to not be standing up for a while.

He kicks the snow off his boots against the doorframe and lets Zuko wriggle free before he opens the door and feels the wall of warmth hit him.

“Hey, Pat,” he says, setting to untying his boots right away before he can track any more snow inside. “Clayton get by okay?”

“Hey! Yeah,” Pat says, sounding distracted. “Yeah he’s good. I assume. Got out of here quick.”

Brian feels a pull of curiosity from Zuko and is vaguely aware of him soliciting pets from Pat while he’s occupied with resolutely refusing to loosen his laces further and wrenching his feet free.

Finally rid of his boots, Brian turns around and sees a box covered in a bedsheet in the middle of the floor and Pat sitting forward on the chair watching him attentively.

“Patrick?” He asks, happily suspicious.

“Happy birthday,” Pat says, smiling lopsided. He laughs nervously, adds a weak, “surprise!”

“Aw, Pat, you didn’t have to get me anything,” Brian says, smiling sweetly. His heart thrills with a rush that almost keeps him locked in place, just grinning like a fool and not doing enough to hide the color rising on his cheeks. Fortunately he’s excited enough to duck his head down and scramble forward until he’s sitting close enough to pull the sheet off with a flourish.

The body of the record player is a warm wood, and when Brian opens the lid with a shaky exhale he can feel a satisfying weight to it. He runs his hands down the smooth, polished sides in silent admiration, brushes his fingers so lightly over the speakers and knobs in the front. It’s small, portable, but not… well, it doesn’t seem like a _cheap_ one. And even if it was…

“Did—is it alright?” Pat asks, brushing his hair back.

Brian turns and stares at him a moment, awestruck, before unsticking himself to assuage Pat’s fears and launch himself over to wrap him in a snug embrace, enfolding him in the cloak he’s still wearing. He hums excitedly, hunched over with his head buried in Pat’s shoulder, and shimmies back and forth until he feels Pat exhale and, finally, hug him back.

He holds tighter, as tight as he thinks he can get away with without making Pat uncomfortable, and his face is hot even against the cold of his body. “Pat Gill, you _did not have to get me anything_ ,” he says again. “Thank you, it’s great, I love it, wow…”

Pat laughs, pulls him in a little tighter. “Good! That’s—I’m glad. But maybe you should try it first, you know? Make sure it, uh, is good.”

With a quick nod into Pat’s shoulder, he pulls away to do just that and feels the drag of Pat’s fingers against his cloak until he’s stepped fully out of reach and flung himself headfirst into his trunk, digging out the records he’d thought would be lying dormant until his tenure here had ended.

While he’d like to spend a lot of time debating the perfect album for an inaugural listen, he’s too amped up and instead keeps frantically shuffling between the same four, trying to prioritize them. What ends up happening is essentially a mental game of hot potato until his impatience reaches a breaking point and he goes with what was last in his hands.

Carefully, reverently, he places the album on the turntable. He furrows his brow when it won’t power on, then starts with an audible, “oh,” but Pat’s already up and plugging it into the wall before he can scramble for the cord. It clicks on and he turns the volume low to start with, then drops the needle and waits for the crackling to burst into life.

Brian has kept busy these last several months. He’s studied a lot, and he’s made friends, and boy has he ever tried to fill the yawning mouth of silence in this house with his own songs. He’s made a real fucking _valiant_ effort on those fronts, with or without the accompaniment of bugs and frogs and birds and everything else that lives in those woods. He’s gone to Simone’s when it hasn’t been enough to fill that void.

So it’s a surprise, how physical his reaction is to finally hearing music of his own choosing filling the house, surrounding him and reverberating down into his bones even before he turns the volume up louder. He lays down, head beside the speakers, and sincerely wonders if he’s going to cry. He doesn’t, not quite, but excess moisture clings to the seams of his closed eyes and he laughs for the joy of it all.

He didn’t realize how badly he missed this. This was a part of his life and it was missing and now that he has it again he will never take it for granted.

The first track fades out and the next starts with such a bombastic energy that Brian can’t help but hurry up onto his feet and whoop and dance like a madman, shooting theatrical sparks from his fingertips at appropriate moments. He tries repeatedly to get Pat to join him, but he always shakes his head and holds his hands up in protest, content to rest against the wall and nod along to the beat and—if the mood strikes him—tap his hands against his knee in accompaniment.

During every instrumental break when he’s not singing along, and in the silence between tracks when he’s not dancing, gratitude tumbles out of Brian’s mouth so continuously that he can hardly catch his breath.

Finally, after flipping the album to its B side, Brian lays flat on his back beside Pat’s chair with his arms flopped over his head while he’s catching his breath. They sit in appreciative silence through most of the song until his heart has calmed and his chest is no longer heaving.

“I finally saw a deer,” Brian says.

“No shit? Took you long enough,” Pat says, smirking down at him. “Now we just have to get you to a secluded hollow or small valley usually covered with trees.”

“Did Clayton really bring you seeds?”

“Actually, yeah, but I didn’t really need you gone for that. Sorry.” He brushes his hair back again, and Brian wishes he could reach Pat’s hair from where he’s laying on the floor. “I didn’t think I’d be sending you out into a storm like this. Hope it wasn’t too bad.”

“Worth it,” Brian says and closes his eyes with a smile. “I didn’t know how much I missed this. Having music available all the time. You’re my hero, Pat Gill.”

He laughs to fill the space, to buy time to play it off. “It’s no big deal.”

“It is to me,” Brian says, cracking an eye open for emphasis.

Pat relents with a hum.

Brian’s not going to ask what it cost, or comment on the fact that he _knows_ it is not an inexpensive model. He’s going to try not to wonder, at night, how far back from his goal this has set Pat. He doesn’t really know anything about what houses cost, anyway, only that as a thesis student even the most inexpensive models of record player would have been at best a financially irresponsible decision and at worst, impossible. He doesn’t even have a _telephone_.

Once he’s feeling good about standing up again, the mood strikes Brian to rummage through the pantry to see what he has in the way of spices. It’s a good night for mulled wine, and he pours what’s left of the bottle into a pot and adds everything that he thinks will make sense: cinnamon, clove, a spent vanilla bean, a handful of cranberries, some candied orange peel. It all smells good at a simmer, at least.

After getting his second wind, Brian sings along for a bit and dances less energetically. At one point he gets Zuko to act as his stand-in for dancing, holding him stretched up under his forearms, letting him keep his feet on the floor while he shimmies his arms rhythmically left or right. He gets Pat to do the same with Charles briefly before the cats gets too squirmy and they take pity upon them.

It’s not until the silence after the first album ends that either of them notice the wind rattling the windows and go to peek outside.

“It’s like being in a snowglobe,” Brian marvels. He can’t see far into the dark night outside, but everything he can see is thick snowfall.

“Yeah,” Pat says, “Might take some work before we can open the door tomorrow but I brought extra firewood in to get through ’til morning, at least.”

And it’s silly, Brian knows—it’s already been a more emotional day than he was anticipating—but that sends a shiver of anticipation down his spine. Practically speaking, this changes nothing. They’re here together _every night_. This is _normal_. But for some reason the addition of weather has given it a spark of excitement. That element of, oh, now we _can’t_ leave. We are stuck here together. Whatever shall we do?

_What we shall do is calm the fuck down._

He busies himself with picking out the next record. A calm one, maybe a symphony will do the trick.

Pat’s shuffling cards aimlessly on the floor for a while before he asks, “You wanna play something?”

“Sure,” Brian says, thinking a moment before grabbing their pillows off the bed and bringing them over. He’s not as fond of sitting on the bare floor as Pat seems to be.

“You played war before?”

“Yeah, higher card wins and takes the other?”

“Mhm, that’s the one. Cut the deck?”

He shrugs, reaches out to do it anyway though he trusts Pat’s shuffling. While he’s at it, he reaches out and dims the lamp a bit with his magic so that he can better see the snowfall.

Four of clubs against six of hearts. Pat wins the first round handily.

“Can Zuko understand me?” he asks, not meeting Brian’s eyes as they continue mindlessly.

“Not like, speech, no. He knows some words by sound, probably. I think I told you before, it’s just feelings between us, usually on purpose.” He wins a couple rounds in a row. “Why’d you ask? You wanna tell him something?”

“No, I uh… I asked him, earlier, to go with you. I thought if he was here, he might spill the beans as soon as you got home. Somehow.”

Brian laughs, “He wouldn’t have cared. Maybe he read your body language or tone or something, I dunno. He doesn’t do what I want half the time and I _can_ communicate with him.”

Pat looks like he’s thinking about how to phrase his next question over their next hand—a draw, each of them placing down three more cards, Brian winning—before he settles on, “Can he talk to Charlie?”

“Not like, any more so than a normal cat.”

“Could he translate? Or is that too complicated?”

“He might be able to if it’s something easy. If he wants to. What’re you thinking?”

For a moment, Pat stops playing. He’s got his hand in his hair, face tilted down wish his palm shielding his eyes while he says, quiet, “I just wanna make sure he knows I—How much I—That I appreciate him. Wonder if he—Anyway. It’s okay.”

It’s hard not to reach out, to lay a comforting hand on his shoulder or knee, when Brian gives Pat a look that’s so heartbreakingly fond—that Pat can’t even _see_ since he’s busy trying to hide his own emotions—and says, “Aw, Pat. Charlie _adores_ you! He follows you everywhere and sleeps on you every night and you don’t even need him bossing you around to tell if he wants something. Watch, I bet if you call him over he’ll come running.”

He sits back and waits with an expectant look, crossing his arms for emphasis. Pat obliges him, making soft sounds and rubbing his thumb against his fingers to get Charles’ attention. It takes a moment for Charles to look up, but once he notices Pat he rolls off the bed and ambles on over, already purring before he’s brushing his face hard on Pat’s hand en route to his lap.

“Well, he didn’t run,” Pat says, quiet and smiling and beaming down at Charles in his lap, rubbing his face indulgently.

Brian excuses himself to get some wine, wanting something warm in his belly. He knows he should be patient and let it simmer longer, but he feels fidgety and could use something to mellow out those nerves. He ladles the wine into a couple mugs, each too full with errant cranberries bobbing on the surface. They’re steaming-warm and nice to hold, which Pat hones immediately, eyes fluttering shut when he wraps both hands around his mug.

After taking a sip and humming contentedly around the steaming heat and spice-warmth of it, he gets an idea. With careful movements, he finds the unspooled but familiar threads of cinnamon and takes care to grab a few of those. Pat nods and he moves his hand forward, grazing Pat’s chest before sitting back in time to appreciate the surprised smile and entirely unexpected shimmy of pleasure that Pat does at the warmth in his body.

Brian wins the next round they play, his seven of clubs against Pat’s two of diamonds.

“It seemed like you had a good time when we went to Jenna’s game night, how come you don’t go normally?” He waits a beat, adds, “You can’t even tell me you don’t like games right now.”

Stroking along the length of Charles’ back, Pat huffs thoughtfully. “It’s… weird. Hard to explain.” He starts turning a card around in his hand, not playing it, just fussing. “They’re fine. Everyone’s nice. I had a good time, I like games.”

“But?”

He sighs, closing his eyes. “But. They… No one does anything on purpose. They’re just talking and enjoying things like normal people. It’s just a lot of stuff I can’t do. Or can’t relate to. Or relate positively to. So I just end up feeling really distant from everyone and no one needs a fucking bummer like that when they’re just having a good time.”

Brian doesn’t have a response ready for that. It’s not like he hadn’t expected as much, but hearing Pat work his way through articulating it—confirming it—makes it sit heavier on him than speculation had. He’s still trying to think of a good reply when Pat breaks the silence.

“Everything just feels different,” Pat says, quietly. He’s diligently petting Charles on the side of his face, working loud, snuffling purrs out of him. “Like, dull? Ugh, I don’t know. I’ll come up with a better way to explain it.”

“You don’t have to—“

“No, I want to. I haven’t, before. I want to be able to. Just let me circle back to it.”

He nods, places down a two of spades. Pat puts down a jack in the same suit.

“What are you doing, after you’re done here?” Pat asks, sound almost tentative.

With a comical groan, Brian buries his face in his hands and replies with an academically anguished, muffled, “I don’t know.”

At least that gets Pat to laugh. “I don’t mean your career, I mean where are you going?”

“Oh, just back home, at first.” Brian moves around so that he can lay on his belly, hugging his pillow under his chin. “My sister’s near home, still. And my academy roommate doesn’t live too far. The three of us might try to figure something out together, we talked about that before I left. I dunno, though. It’s been almost a year, I don’t know if either of them have changed their minds.”

Pat looks up, meets his eyes. “Have you changed your mind? About what you want to do?”

Brian comes to the end of the cards in his hand, welcomes the distraction of shuffling his discard pile into play. He’s not asking about the thesis, it isn’t _lying_. “No, I still don’t know. I’ve had my train ticket home since I got here, though. So I know I’m going home at the end of May, and five days later I’m going to my academy to present my thesis, and then I’m at the end of the road as far as stalling on starting my life goes.”

“Shed’s still available for sericulture,” Pat says, mouth tugged to the side but not quirked into a smile.

“Yeah, or I could go into indentured servitude with Simone.”

That, at least, gets a genuine laugh out of Pat.

They play several rounds in silence. Each win, Brian tells himself, _next time. Next win. The next one_

Pat places a three of clubs, Brian places a six of spades.

“Hey Pat, what’s your sister like?” He says in a small, too-casual voice, daring a glance up at Pat’s face.

For his part, Pat just breathes in and out slow, doesn’t wince or flinch or act like he didn’t know it had to be coming. “Haven’t seen her in a while. She’s older. Moved away for school and stayed there.”

“Were you close?”

“Not— She was nice enough, when I was a kid. Just older, you know? Not close.”

His answers are stilted enough that Brian would have to be dead asleep not to know that there’s more to it than that. Whether he’s trying hard to conceal those truths or trying even harder to speak them, he can’t tell. Might as well push.

“Was she around after you drowned?” he asks, gently.

This time, Pat does wince. “No. I mean—She was… she’d gone to school. At that point. But she came back, after. For the, hah, the funeral? So she um… I saw her again. She uh… she came back, for summer, but then my parents started going to see her instead of having her come down here.”

“Was she afraid of you?” Brian keeps his eyes politely on the cards.

“I don’t think so. Not that, not really. No one was _afraid_ of me,” he breathes out sharp, “I mean, what the fuck could I even do to be afraid of? Make them cold?”

“Sorry—“

“No, no. You’re fine. Sorry. They just,” Pat stills his hand on Charlie’s back and runs his other hand through his hair, “They had a funeral, you know? They grieved. Started to come to terms with everything, and then, there I am! Just… wrong.”

Brian looks up at that, furrows his brow and says, scolding, “You’re not _wrong_ —“

“I know.” Pat cuts him off, again, “But, like, think about it. I come back and I’m _me_ but I can’t wrestle anymore, I can’t eat, I can’t get warm. I’m somehow an even _sadder_ motherfucker. There was a whole mess even figuring out how to get me re-enrolled in school. If I even needed it, since—” he halts, suddenly, puts a hand over his eyes and tips his head back to take a few breaths.

“Pat,” Brian says, almost inaudibly soft over the crackle of the fire, “You don’t have to tell me. We can do something else.”

Pat shakes his head sharply under his hand, says, “I’ll fuckin’ circle back to it.”

When Pat’s regained his composure after several more rounds, he wins with a five of diamonds against a three of clubs and asks, “What’s your sister like?”

“She’s my partner in crime,” Brian says, smiling fondly. “She didn’t go to an academy, but we’ve always had a lot of similar interests. Worked on projects together, with magic and without. We enable each other.”

“What’s her name?”

“Laura. I actually have a brother, too? His name’s Patrick.”

“No shit?”

“Yeah, really. He’s old enough that we’re not as close, though. Also he was never as interested in magic. He’s a lawyer, so my mom already got her successful kid out of the way and that gave me room to slack off.”

“Doesn’t seem like you’re slacking much,” Pat says.

Brian buries his face in his pillow and groans before rising enough to say, “Well, yeah, not _now_. Not with this. This is the hardest I’ve ever worked on anything in my life, Pat. And I’ve got, what, three months left before I have to present it?”

Pat reaches as far as he can without disturbing Charles and gives Brian a couple sympathetic _there there_ pats on his head with just the brush of one fingertip. “You’ve got time. You’re working hard. Sorry, I didn’t mean to stress you out.”

“You’re good,” Brian says with a heavy sigh. He shouldn’t be letting _Pat_ worry about stressing _him_ out. He lets the silence stretch while they continue playing.

“My parents moved up by my sister right before I finished high school,” Pat says, apropos of nothing, like ripping off a bandage. “I was so fuckin’ sad, I think they all expected me to disappear before it’d even been that long. So they didn’t want to, I don’t know, get used to me being around? And then lose me again? Or what the fuck ever.”

It’s hard to know how to respond, again. Pat’s trying so hard to say everything casually, to act like it’s not something that affected him strongly then and continues to now. Does he want Brian to play along, to help cover for his lapse in maintaining his composure?

“What the fuck,” Brian says with feeling, hoping that what Pat really wanted was righteous indignation on his behalf. “That’s awful, Pat.”

“Yeah,” Pat agrees, almost excited. Spurred on. “Yeah, it was.” And yet, he rests for just a moment and loses steam. “But I can’t really blame them. It makes sense. Just sucked to be on the other end of it. They sent letters for a while, at least. Let me stay in their house a while, ’til they sold it.”

“What’d you do after?”

“Hung around a while. Simone’s parents let me stay in a guest room for a bit, but it was just weird. Everyone seemed like they tiptoed around me. Plus, she was going off to college and I didn’t want to, like, haunt their house, you know?”

“Is that when you came here?”

Charles gets up and walks over closer to the fire, laying down beside Zuko. Pat resettles on his belly and mirrors Brian’s position.

“No. I left.” He closes his eyes. “Just up and left without saying anything. Started walking and kept going. Selfish bastard.”

“Where’d you go?” Brian asks, surprised.

Pat shrugs as best he can in this position. “Around. I was gone for about five years. Mountains, coasts, pretty much everywhere but the desert or huge cities. That’s how I learned to farm, though, trying to find work. I just needed something to _do_.”

“What sort of stuff did you learn?” The record stops and Brian gets up to flip it, returning to his previous position immediately.

“This and that. Spent a few months at a time in different places being fucking _stupid_ and working for free just for the opportunity to learn. There’s a lot I can’t do on a farm, I can’t lift much and all, but they didn’t have to feed me or pay me so it’s not like I was draining resources. Worked on an orchard for close to a year… Some grain fields, near the end. Not barley, I picked that up on my own from reading, but there’s similar principles with wheat so I had some basics down.”

“Wow, how come you never talk about that?” Brian asks.

“‘Cause I’m fucking _ashamed_. Everyone thought I was dead—I mean, you know. Gone.” He runs a hand through his hair and looks askance. “When I finally came back, I didn’t plan on stopping. I was just nearby and curious, and fuckin’… I saw Simone out back at the bar, taking out trash or whatever—she was just working there back then, hadn’t taken over the place—and she _screamed_ when she saw me.” He laughs, soft and sad, “She stomped right through my foot. She was so pissed. And then she cried and kept yelling at me and hitting through me and hugging me. It was… a lot.”

“But she was glad to see you,” Brian chances a quiet reaction, hoping it won’t still the well of truth that’s sprung from Pat.

“Yeah. She was. I didn’t think about her, when I left. How bad what I did was going to hurt her. That’s why I can’t be too mad at my family, you know? I did to her what they were afraid I’d do to them. I don’t know if I’ll ever feel like I’ve made it up to her, but I started growing barley for her when she took over the bar and got to talking about getting a brewing operation set up. So I found myself a purpose after all.”

“You know you don’t have to though, right?” Brian asks, cautiously meeting Pat’s eyes. “You can just be you and do what you want and go where you want and make friends. Or don’t. You don’t need to, like, _earn your keep_ , you know?”

Pat laughs a little, empty, filling the silence. “I kind of do, though. I need something to keep me going. I can basically think myself out of existence if I give up and start thinking there’s nothing left for me here.”

“That’s a lot to have to deal with at fourteen,” Brian says, reaching out and grazing his fingertips along Pat’s forearm. He’s glad there wasn’t more wine after all, just enough that he feels calm but not so much that Pat would be talking about things he wouldn’t want to otherwise.

“Yeah,” Pay says, putting down the king of hearts. Brian puts down the ace of hearts. “I don’t know what comes after this, but I’m afraid of it being nothing. And I don’t want to be nothing. Even if I have to deal with all the baggage that comes with being _something_ to avoid it.”

“For what it’s worth,” Brian says, scooting forward enough that he can lay his hand solidly on Pat’s arm, “I’m glad you’re here.”

Pat looks at him with the closest thing he’s had to a real, lasting smile for the first time since they started the game. “Yeah. Me too.”

They’re quiet a while, playing the rest of the game through until Pat emerges victorious. Before Brian can get up, he holds up a finger in a universal _wait a moment_ gesture.

“I think I might have something. Do you know how animation is done?”

“No,” Brian says, head tilting in confusion while he tries to rewind their conversation and figure out what loose thread Pat’s trying to tie up.

“The backgrounds are done separately, since they don’t need to move, but the characters and objects or whatever they interact with are drawn onto cels. And those are like… transparent sheets, except for what’s drawn on them, so that you can layer them and it all comes together.”

Brian nods, not completely grasping what’s going on but following well enough.

“Since I died, that’s the best I can explain how things feel. It’s like I’m on a separate… plane, layer, dimension, I don’t know. Like I can interact with people and objects but I’m not _there_ with them. There’s this distance I can’t close, and it’s physical and emotional and it sucks. It’s hard to be around people sometimes because it highlights how I can’t relate to a lot of their lives, and that they’re just so much more _connected_ to everything.”

Brian opens his mouth to try apologizing yet again for how the world has dealt Pat this unfair hand.

“That’s why it was… a lot, when you figured out the thing with the alcohol. I wasn’t excited just to get drunk or party or whatever. It felt _real_. It made _me_ feel real. Other things, too, but that started it all.” Pat’s looking away again, too sincere to look him in the eye. “I know I tried to explain it, then. But I don’t know if I explained what it meant to me. If I could ever explain. So thank you. Again. I’d get you a record player every day for the rest of my life if I could.”

It’s impossible, he can’t look at Pat now. His face is burning hot into his pillow and Brian can’t help but kick his feet a few times into the wooden floor to work out the force of the affection flooding his system. “Pat,” he whines into the pillow, drawing out the vowel, “You can’t be all badass and quiet for months and then get so sentimental, I don’t know what to do with that!”

Pat laughs at him, unsympathetic, and rises to feed the fire. “Don’t talk about it much and I wanted you to know. Thanks for listening.”

Unsure of how he could possibly continue the conversation without losing his cool and saying something he shouldn’t, Brian gets up to brush his teeth, staring out into the snow while he does so. “Sh a lot,” he says around the brush, shivering against the chill air around the window.

Despite the options available, Pat steps over to the same window to look out. “Yeah. Gonna be annoying. I can go into town if you need anything tomorrow, it’ll be easier for me to walk through it ’til it’s less powdery.”

“Shou- be fin-,” Brian says, grateful to have his toothbrush handy as a reason to extract himself from the situation when he leaves to rinse his mouth.

By the time he’s done, Pat’s already settled in bed with faithful Charles purring away on his chest. Zuko at least spares him a glance from his spot in front of the fire while he slips into bed, turning the light off with a wave of his hand.

“How come you know so much about animation?” Brian asks, quiet in case Pat’s already asleep.

“Used to draw a lot,” Pat says simply. He tacks on a sleepy, “G’night,” and lets it rest at that. 

He’s returned to his usual brevity, perhaps exhausted from prying himself open emotionally for Brian’s benefit. _He didn’t have to, though. You tried telling him that. He wanted to talk. He wanted you to know_.

There’s a lot of new information Brian needs to process. There are a lot of nuances to consider, plenty more than he can reasonably go over right now, no matter the temptation to stay awake all night anxiously analyzing everything.

In the mean time, there are some pieces that slot into place very fucking clearly: Pat is grateful for him to the point of kindness, if not—perhaps this is too presumptive, _stop being such a narcissist_ —affection. Pat’s own family left him on his own well over a decade ago. Brian is leaving in three months.

Simone’s cautioning weighs even heavier on him than before. 

He wants nothing more than to turn and wrap himself irresponsibly around Pat, to feel his own warmth displace itself in another body.

He shuts his eyes tight, instead, and grounds his hands beside himself, pressing into the mattress lightly.

Pat shifts, imperceptible save for the movement of their shared blanket. It could all be—almost certainly is—in Brian’s head, but he swears he can feel a radiant chill alongside his hand.

Somehow, somewhere in this moment that stretches on in frozen silence—a small eternity in a snowglobe—Brian falls asleep.

 

The bright, clear daylight wakes Brian earlier than usual. He groans in protest, curls inward and burrows his head against Pat’s chest. Sobered by the cold against his forehead, he rouses himself enough to take stock of this morning’s cuddle: they’re sort of yin-and-yanged around each other, arms and legs to themselves but nestled up close nonetheless.

He tries cautiously to back himself up, but Pat whines in protest and adds a sleepy, “Too bright.”

Brian sits up on one elbow just enough to see that the sun reflecting off the snow is the offending party in this situation. If only he’d got _curtains_ at some point in the last, say, _nine months_. Why didn’t he have a curtain stipend?

A full blanket would be suffocating, so he gropes around the layers until he’s grabbed the top sheet and pulls it over his and Pat’s heads, dampening the glaring light into a serene pale blue.

It’s like a separate world, a liminal space, the two of them cocooned in soft blue light. The snow insulates them from all of the sounds of the outside world. Even Charles, stomping indelicately on the sheet and settling himself firmly in the hammock-valley of space between their bodies, feels oddly serene. Brian’s whole world is narrowed to the dull throb of his heart, to Pat’s gentle, sleepy eyes, to their twin sighs of contentment as they settle in against each other once more, to Pat’s hand winding its way into his hair to scratch languidly at his scalp, before they have to face this cold new day together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> @mosaicgoodbye on tumblr made [this gorgeous gifset of quotes from the last nine chapters](https://mosaicgoodbye.tumblr.com/post/187449783786/i-am-here-for-my-thesis-he-reminds-himself-we) and I am in awe of how aesthetically perfect it is please look!!!
> 
> Pat has of course had Charles dance on stream, but for a good time check out the music video for [Precious by MEG](https://www.dailymotion.com/video/xezn9l) from at least 2:30 on. It's a fun video.


	10. Spring I

The only difference between late winter and early spring is that Pat begins to spend more time outside again. Snow begins to recede in a strange seasonal waltz of thaw and snowfall—two-steps-forward, one-step-back—so that there is little visible change unless one is keeping track of the depth.

Brian has been unwaveringly studious as time as gone on. With Pat out for much of the day now, planting and clearing and whatever else it is that he’s busy with, there’s no need to hide when he’s poring over his bottles and jars nowadays. He thinks it helps, having music on constantly, allowing him both a familiar soundtrack to enhance his concentration and a built-in break system for the songs that he can’t help but sing or dance along with.

Pat seems to be able to read his mind as soon as it begins getting dark out and he comes back inside. His divinations are nothing wildly specific, just a casual, “Rough day?” or, “Good progress, huh?”

Finally, on one of the worse days, Brian nearly tears his hair out asking, “How can you _tell_ , Patrick?!”

Pat blinks back at him, surprised. “Your music,” he says, like it’s obvious. “Just noticed the kind of stuff you choose based on your mood, that’s all.”

“Oh,” Brian says, feeling some mixture of foolish and flattered. He hadn’t paid a lot of attention to it himself, still shuffling between albums and genres constantly. He was the kind of child that had to give his stuffed animals equal amounts of attention, he thought he was simply doing the same for his music.

Today he’s got some fanciful impressionist piano pieces going—too much their own thing to be tempted to join in on—while he’s working over one of his vanilla extracts that he has fondly named Jar #3. There’s a shallow bowl beside the jar, empty once Zuko and Charles had inspected it thoroughly and removed their noses from its center.

He breathes out slow and steady while he gathers up the alcohol from the extract. This part he’s at least familiar with by now. He’s been working on this method for a while, trying to remove any possible component from the substance other than its flavor. Trying to take a cohesive _something_ and detangle its parts into separate but recognizable elements.

The alcohol goes into the dish, where the strands slosh a bit before they settle. He gathers a few strands up to make sure he can feel absolutely nothing else along their length, and just as in times past he finds nothing detectable. He sighs—either he’s been on the right track with this part, or he’s still missing something.

This next part is what he can easily lose hours in. Sometimes he gathers the liquid in a sphere, turns it around hoping part of it will reveal a weakness like a puzzle box. Sometimes he stirs a small whirlpool into the jar, hoping it will gather the lurking flavors together somewhere more noticeable. Once, memorably, he plunged his desperate fingers right into Jar #1—may it rest in peace—and came away with nothing but a tainted experiment and a lingering smell of baked goods.

So this time, he’s just breathing calm and slow, letting his mind wander with the asynchronous rhythms playing from somewhere behind him loud enough to fill the room. He moves his hands a bit, first trying to follow a beat and then in some approximation of what he imagines playing this part on a piano might be like.

And—

He wishes it was intentional. Some kind of meditative exercise. Something he thought might yield a result. Anything but dumb, dumb, _dumb_ luck—

But there’s something there.

He loses it momentarily in his shock, feels it slip past his fingertips, but with adrenaline roaring in his ears, drowning out the music, he finds it again in the depths of the jar.

His hands are, just, _shaking_ and he’s trying so hard not to get too hopeful and he realizes, distantly, that this whole display would be hilarious from the outside. A madman finally cracking over a small jar.

The threads are so… infinitesimally fine. Like spidersilk split in twain. _Now’s no time for poetry_. They’re coiled loosely, none of them too long but a few loosely entangled.

With his free hand, he tips the bowl unceremoniously over and it against the floor a couple of times against the edge of the desk for good measure, then rights it and begins to deposit these new strands into it.

Once he’s found what he can—there could be _more_ —he sits back and takes a few deep breaths. This could be nothing. This could just be… he’s not sure what else. It’s frightening, though, to hope so strongly.

So he steels himself, gathers as many strands as he can in one hand, pinched between all of his fingers, and brings them, shaking, to his lips.

Vanilla blooms over his tongue, fragrant and familiar and warm—not hot, but all comfort and _home_ —and he shuts his eyes tight savors the taste that he will never again in his life take for granted.

There are a few courses of immediate action he considers: cry with relief, double-check his work, run to Pat immediately, and dance with Zuko.

He opts for the last one first, whooping and dashing over to Zuko and spinning him about in a tight embrace. Zuko can, of course, feel the excitement radiating off him even without Brian pushing it in his direction. He endures this display of affection with tolerance and dignity, even graces Brian with a headbutt against his chin.

And, well, this is a celebration so he sets Zuko down and scoops up Charles as well. He’s a surprisingly good sport about it, meowing and wriggling a bit against his arms but not going so far as to scratch at him.

And now… Well. Okay. First, he needs to do it again. Make sure it wasn’t a one-off. He dashes a few steps to the kitchen and unscrews the lid on Jar #2, feeling over it right there on the counter and— _Yes!_ It’s there!

After all of this time, _it’s there_ and he can _feel_ it and this hasn’t all been for nothing. He hasn’t failed. The relief is palpable.

Okay, okay. So now—He tells Pat, right? Runs right out to him, right? But… well… it’s just one flavor. It’s just one thing right now. That’s something, sure. Pat would probably appreciate it greatly. He’d better, it’s _incredible_ , it’s a _discovery_ —

But it’s just one thing. So what if… what if Brian tries to contain his excitement. Tries to do more. He’s got time, is the thing. He can see how far he can push this envelope and if he gets no further than vanilla extract, well, that’s pretty great anyway.

He can’t just _not show anyone_ , though. He feels the bones-deep, primal need to share this with someone. Not just for praise and validation, but to prove that it happened, to have an external source confirm that he’s actually managed to do this.

So he pulls his cloak on lightning fast, puts the lid tight on Jar #2 and tucks it safe into his bag, and he’s two steps out the door before he turns on his heel, writes an afterthought of a note ( _Gone to town, back soon probably_ ), and heads out once more.

It’s a cruelty of nature, that there’s still so much snow on the road. Brian wants so badly to sprint into town. He might even do it, snow and all, if not for the fear—the certainty—that he’d slip and shatter the jar in the resultant fall.

Walking quickly, at least, affords him more time to consider who exactly he’s going to find in town. It’s still early enough that Simone might not be working yet. And actually, even if she was… Maybe she’s too close to Pat. Maybe he needs to play this card close to his chest.

Tara talks with Pat a lot too. Clayton sees him regularly. There are very few people he’s made an effort to get to know who are not connected more deeply with Pat than with himself.

Jenna is perfect, though. Jenna, who works in a kitchen, who doesn’t seem to have lived here long, who doesn’t know Pat terribly well, who’s interested in his magic to begin with.

If she’s not at Simone’s, he might hoof it all the way out to her house. He’s certainly got enough impatience to consider it.

The snow’s packed down well enough once he gets into town that he can walk with a normal gait and he has to consciously slow himself down outside Simone’s so he doesn’t burst through the door with all the drama he certainly feels this situation warrants.

His stars have truly aligned themselves today. Jenna calls out a, “Mornin’!” before she even sees him, then smiles more genuinely and waves his way once she sees who’s walked in. Simone’s nowhere in sight.

“Getting an early start, huh?” Jenna asks when he sits at the counter.

It’s mercifully empty in here—not that anyone else cares about this, realistically—just a couple tables in the opposite corner of the room.

“Are you busy?” Brian asks, cutting to the chase.

“Well, I’m working,” Jenna says, “but it’s slow so I can chat a little between what I need to do. What’s up?”

Brian starts reaching into his bag to get Jar #2 out, “I’ve been working on something that I need to show you.” He sets it down dramatically. “I just—I’m gonna need you to promise not to tell anyone else about this. Not Simone, _especially_ not Patrick.”

She stares at the jar critically, brows knit in confusion. She opens her mouth to speak but Brian cuts her off.

“It’s nothing bad. It’s really good! I just… I want to make it better. If I have time. And I need someone else to, just, confirm what I just figured out. That’s all. It’s good, I promise.”

Jenna looks at him for a long moment, like she’s assessing him. Whatever she finds must be good enough, though, because she shrugs and says, “Alright then, let’s see it.”

Brian unscrews the lid and begins with work his hand nervously over the lid of the jar. He’s not used to doing this with an audience. Well, he’s not used to doing _this_ at all, not yet. The extra set of eyes makes him nervous though, makes it a little harder to sort quickly through the familiar strands to grab the less familiar ones.

He gets what he thinks is enough though, holds them between his thumb and first two fingers, and says, “Sorry, I just need to, uh, excuse me,” and reaches out tentatively toward her face, waiting for her to nod before he gets the rest of the way there, barely brushing her lips before letting go and drawing his hand back quickly.

She goes through a brief face-journey—confused, surprised, pleased—and responds with a mild and happy, “Vanilla! Cool!”

It’s a huge relief, the confirmation that he’s succeeded. He expected it though, to some extent. What he didn’t expect was to double over laughing weakly, face resting against the slightly-sticky bar.

“Jenna!” He says when he can get the name out, “I just discovered this spell! This didn’t exist before!”

“Oh,” she says, politely recalibrating the gravity of the situation. “That’s amazing, Brian! I don’t know anything about magic, I just assumed it was a cool new thing you learned from a book or something. Can you do other flavors?”

He lifts his head from the bar, skin peeling off of it, _ew_ , and says, “I haven’t tried yet. I just… I’ve been focusing on vanilla extract because I made it so I knew what to look for in it. I have a few more at home, lemon and almond and mint. I haven’t tried solid food yet. I want to, though. I want to try _all_ of it. I want to unravel this whole thing before I leave if I can. I might need your help with some things, though. Maybe. I don’t even know what I’d ask for help with, though… I guess if you could make things with very simple flavors, maybe I could bring in the extracts for you to use after I’ve got those down…”

“Woah, yeah, all of that,” Jenna says in reply to his rambling. “I’m fine with helping, but probably not at work, you know. Just some home baking in my free time.”

“Oh yeah, yeah, of course.” He shakes himself from his reverie for a moment. “I also think I just really need someone to be able to talk about this with. It’s a lot to keep to myself—for me, anyway. I’m not a big _secrets_ kind of guy.”

“Well, lucky for you, one of us can keep a secret.” Jenna smirks at him, then mutters a quick, _hang on_ and goes to tend to someone else getting up to go to the bar.

Brian feels energized. All the frantic and frenetic energy he’d poured into this, hoping simply to _not completely fail_ is something he can channel into the more positive pursuit of getting as far with this project as he can.

For the first time in a while, without having to completely ignore his academic situation, he feels that things are actually going to be okay.

 

There are daffodils coming up when Brian’s finally worked out the nuances of all of the extracts he’d bought. He’s tempted on multiple occasions to order more from Clayton, but it’s better to save what little money he has and just try and move on to the next phase of experimentation. It’s exciting and daunting, the thought of trying to pick out more nuanced, less pure flavors. To see if their forms are even recognizable when they’re solid. It might be a brick wall.

In the meantime he’s managed to combine all the permutations of the flavors he has, however unpleasant some may be.

The real second breakthrough comes when—after only a couple of days of at turns staring meditatively at the drizzle off a honey dipper and waving his hands methodically over the honey jar—he finds what he’s after and the floral sweetness of honey blossoms in his mouth and nose. It’s cloying enough that he ends up cupping his cheek as if to suppress it, but he smiles through the fading taste.

He’s started spending a little bit of time out at the field with Pat again, on sunnier days. There’s a lot of area he needs to cover, tending to the new seedlings, so Brian fancies himself good company—and entertainment, on the days when he can stand to keep his arms outside his cloak long enough to play a few songs—and Pat does nothing to discourage him.

The new green buds of leaves put a smile on Brian’s face when he walks through the wooded paths, still snowy in their shade. He gets used to the sound of piles of snow _shhhh_ ing off pine boughs on warmer days, and delights in catching sight of those branches springing up after shedding that weight.

They’re not out of the woods yet though, as far as weather goes. It’s a particularly cold day, Brian huddled in front of the fire fussing with his one remaining vanilla jar—the rest having been delivered to Jenna—when Zuko flops over beside him in annoyance and he looks up to see a heavy snowfall through the window.

Patrick doesn’t come back much quicker than normal, probably trying to get as much work as he can done before there’s too much snow coverage to get anything done, but he’s in a predictably disgruntled mood when he returns.

“You cool with me taking a bath?” Pat asks before the door’s even slammed shut behind him.

“You do that?” Brian asks, confused, before tacking on, ”Yeah, of course, it’s your house.”

“I’m probably going to use all the hot water. And I’m going to be a while.” Pat says, stalking past him and getting the bath running before he comes back to linger in the doorframe. “So, you know, now’s your window of opportunity if you need anything in there.”

“Oh,” Brian says. “I’m fine. You’re good.”

He can tell Pat’s not upset with him, that he’s just trying to keep him out of the line of fire of his frustration. He gets snippy, sometimes, on the colder days now that it’s been warming up.

Brian puts his jar away, moves casually to the record player and puts something fun on before settling on the mattress with his ukulele, strumming quietly along.

Pat moves over in front of the fire until he can hear the water hit the right tone for _full tub_. He hesitates between steps, passing Brian, like he’s not sure whether or not to thank him or apologize, and he settles on more of a jerk of his head downward than a nod before he shuts himself in the bathroom.

After the immediate splashes— _did he get in there fully clothed?_ —there are no further sounds save for those made by Brian and his record player.

The A-side finishes, and then the B-side, and then a second A-side and Pat’s _still_ in there. Brian would’ve worried that he’d fallen asleep if he hadn’t heard the tub drain and then refill near the end of the first album.

Zuko doesn’t appear to be too troubled by someone other than Brian being in the bathroom, though he does occasionally glance toward the door and push his casual displeasure toward Brian. Charles doesn’t seem concerned, but he eventually begin to hold a vigil flopped against the bathroom door.

Brian’s settled himself into a throne of blankets and pillows when Pat finally emerges, heralded by the splashing of water and the unmistakable draining of a tub.

When he emerges, he picks up Charles and nuzzles their faces together before he flops down on the mattress beside Brian, looking uncharacteristically relaxed.

Brian almost reflexively scolds him for getting on the bed while he’s wet, but the water’s already dripped off Pat completely and instead, feeling the radiant heat through the blanket, he says, “Woah! Pat, you’re _warm_.”

Pat smiles up at him blissfully. “Yeah,” he says, slow and savoring it. “Takes a long time. Don’t usually have hot enough water for it. It feels good, though.”

“Why don’t you do this all the time?”

He shrugs, lackadaisically, “Got used to not doing it. Takes forever to get warm all the way through. Have to refill it once or twice, usually.”

“You can get warm all the way through?” Brian asks, surprised. “How long’s it last?”

“Depends,” Pat says, “Probably long enough I can fall asleep like this tonight, it’s warm in here.” He sighs contentedly and stretches out on his belly like a cat.

“Here, look,” he adds, reaching his hand out clumsily to rest on Brian’s shoulder, his fingers sliding down along his collarbone as he presses them in, until he’s pressing them _in_.

And he’s right, he’s _warm_ , and Brian’s body doesn’t react at all to this strange intrusion. It feels only slightly unnatural—the nearest analogue he can find is it feeling like a cramp or like the pins-and-needles of a limb fallen asleep—maybe one degree warmer than his own internal body temperature, but there’s nothing unpleasant or invasive to having Pat’s fingers inside of his shoulder.

His long, clever fingers that reach inside and _through_ him, that wiggle visibly, playfully, on the other side of his body like a magician’s trick.

Brian feels the threat of a blush and leans into it, making his tone playfully accusatory as he brings a hand coyly to his chest and says, “Patrick, please, you can’t mean to presume that I’m this easy for any warm body that comes my way. At least buy me dinner first.”

Pat withdraws his hand and turns on his side to look him in the eye while he deadpans, “I have. Multiple times.”

Raising his eyebrows, Brian locks his hands behind his head and splays out as much as he’s able to within the blankets and says, “Well, shit, how do you want me then?”

Immediately, predictably, Pat’s hands are covering his face and he’s curling up and groaning over the sounds of Brian’s raucous laughter. Pat’s good for one volley of innuendo and no more, a hard limit which Brian has passed enough times to know about and still enjoy exploiting how thoroughly embarrassed he gets when that line is crossed.

 _These conversations are safe_ , is how Brian mentally sidesteps the prickle of his conscience. Pat never escalates. Nothing lost, nothing gained.

“Sorry, sorry,” Brian says, not sorry at all. “Here, look, show me again,” He adds, tugging at Pat’s wrist gently until he can peel his hand willingly away from his face.

He laces his fingers through Pat’s limp ones and holds tight to his warm hand then squeezes until he’s phased through, fingertips resting somewhere both inside of Pat’s palm and against his own.

“It feels nice,” he says, still holding on.

Pat hums in agreement, then slowly folds his own fingers inward until what they’re doing more closely resembles intersecting fists than holding hands.

“You can use the bath whenever you want, you know,” Brian says. “I can prepare more cinnamon to make sure there’s enough hot water ready.”

“Thank you,” Pat says, quiet, his eyes shut. Charles is purring and rubbing up beside him, circling against his belly several times before flopping against him contentedly.

“I’m gonna make some dinner,” Brian says softly before starting to pull gently away. “You can take my spot if you want. It’s, uh, warmed up for you.”

Pat breathes out a laugh and smiles but stays still, idly petting Charles. Brian decides to at least drape one of the blankets he was using over Pat’s back, leaving Charles plenty of breathing room.

He’s a few steps away when curiosity comes up, too strong to ignore, so he turns and asks, “Did you bathe in your clothes?”

And even though he’s halfway to either a nap or an early night, Pat manages to get out another huff-laugh and a firm, “Yep.”

Satisfied with solving that mystery, Brian pads softly into the kitchen to make himself a quiet dinner.

 

It’s been a solid two weeks without snow, the forest is undeniably greener with new leaves unfurling to hide the birds singing their return. Brian has to take care, now, not to step on any errant bulbs sprung up a little too close to the paths through the woods.

He’s been over to visit Jenna a few times while Simone’s out at work. At first she had made small batches of quickbreads with the flavors he’d already familiarized himself with, but it was too far removed from the forms he’d grown used to. They backtracked to puddings and although Brian wasn’t able to pick it up immediately that day, he’d taken them home and gotten the right feel for them within a couple more days.

It took a while longer to pick up the nuances beyond the main flavorants, to sort out those intangible notes that bridged the gap over the uncanny valley between single note flavors and the mellow silkiness of _pudding_.

Jenna seems nearly as invested in this project as Brian, greeting him with droves of enthusiastic suggestions and ideas and experiments every time they meet.

“This is what got me interested in food,” she explains one day when Brian thinks he’s boring her with too many details about magic. “There are so many little factors that you can adjust and manipulate to get different results. Even ingredient substitutions are fascinating!”

They’re trying quickbreads again when Brian asks, “How come you ended up here and not somewhere with more… opportunity?” He feels guilty, settling on that, but it’s the best word he can think of even if it is a bit indelicate.

She shrugs a shoulder while slicing into a lemon loaf. “I haven’t really _ended up_ here, I’m just passing through. I wanted to live somewhere like this for a bit, somewhere really remote, at least once in my life. There’s a lot more freedom to experiment on my own free time here; working at Simone’s doesn’t burn me out and suck the passion out of making things.”

“Where are you gonna go?”

“Not sure,” she says, easy and cheerful. “I’ll figure it out when I get restless. For now I’m just enjoying being here. There are a lot of regional and family recipes I’ve been learning from folks in town. It’s worked out pretty well so far. Plus I never thought I’d get to work with a witch. Now I get to think about what I’m making with a perspective I never would’ve had otherwise.”

Brian hums in response and starts to work with the lemon loaf. It’s not just him leaving, then. Jenna will leave too, someday. And who knows who else, who knows how long a town like this can survive with its youth pulled by the siren song of cities, or at the very least the need for opportunity. Will everyone disperse enough someday that Simone has to shutter her doors? Will Clayton’s market become a glorified gas station? Or will they leave before all of that, seeking their fortunes elsewhere as well? 

He physically shakes the that train of thought from his head and focuses himself, pulling out the lemon flavor easily now that he’s felt the way it’s wont to change in different forms while maintaining certain core characteristics.

It takes the better part of three hours before he’s got everything—or at least, _enough_ —and for Jenna to nod her head with approval. Brian slumps over immediately with relief, overjoyed to take a break from permutations of the same flavor. He’d had plenty of snack breaks to cleanse his palate, but he’d hit a point two hours in when he could no longer pick up the subtle nuances between his attempts and Jenna had stepped in.

The subsequent attempts go much quicker at least, now that he’s used to it.

“You should start working with other flavors,” Jenna suggests when she’s driving him home. “Maybe start with simple things like fruits and vegetables.”

“Yeah,” Brian says, fidgeting. “Every time I figure out something new it just gets harder to keep it to myself.”

She smacks him lightly on the shoulder, not taking her eyes off the road. “Nope! That’s your assignment for the week, work on other foods you haven’t tried yet.”

It’s a joke, of course, but it’s also a relief to have _some_ kind of guidance to listen to. It’s a lot easier to keep himself patient if he’s just following orders, if there’s the promise of a next step rather than an endless unmarked road of possibilities that he can decide to stop walking down whenever he gets sick of it.

 

He starts with the familiar. Oranges aren’t too difficult, which is a relief because they are the most affordable citrus he hasn’t already tried. Cherries share chemical similarities to almond extract flavorants, though there’s a tartness to them that Brian struggles over for most of an afternoon before he manages to wrangle the full flavor.

Zucchini is mild and unchallenging. Broccoli takes some work, he has to come back to it a few times. Lettuce is bizarre, too alien when removed from the watery crunch of biting into it.

Herbs and spices end up being fairly easy, much to his relief. Rosemary practically leaps into his fingers. Cinnamon it difficult at first, since he’s so used to working with it in different ways, and he has to learn to separate and balance the flavor and the heat.

Perhaps the best-tasting week in his entire academic career comes when he works his way through all of the different options for potato preparation with Jenna. It’s a lot more nuanced, figuring out how to differentiate a french fry from a tater tot without the advantage of texture, but he’s getting better every day at finding those tiny spidersilk strands of difference.

Jenna pushes him to add temperature to his spells. She insists they spend a day working on it together, heating bowls of mashed potatoes to different degrees and helping him through acknowledging how much of an effect it has on the results. It would be so much easier not to, but he can’t deny how much better it is when he _does_.

There are still failures, here and there. The bubbles in champagne or in the carbonation of soda are too transient for him to grasp. The few times he thinks he may have managed, they disappear far too quickly to do anything with them. He’s able to get the flavor of cola eventually—a personal victory considering how complicated it once seemed—but it’s disappointing and flat no matter what he does.

He’s in Simone’s early one day to see Jenna, having left long after Pat was already out in the field, when he realizes he’s feeling adrift. “What do you think I should work on next?”

Jenna gives him a long, considering look before she says, “I don’t know, Brian. As far as I can tell, you have all of the principles down.”

It’s surprising, the anxiety that this sparks. He’s quiet, fusses with the corner of a napkin on the counter.

“I can keep making you new things to try, but at this point no matter what I throw at you, you seem to figure it out in a few days at most.”

“I’m not ready to be done,” he admits.

It’s been wonderful, all of these weeks without the crush of the calendar weighing on him. He let his guard down. Magic hasn’t been the only part of his life that’s been on a time limit.

“Well, you’ve got plenty to present so even if you want to keep going, you’ve got enough for now.”

She’s right. He’s still got some writing to do. He has a month left to wrap this up.

No time to panic.

“Thanks,” he says, then repeats with more sincerity, “thank you for all your help. I’ll be back around. I’m just… gonna go for a walk. Get some air.”

Between _you okay?_ s and _are you sure?_ s and _let me know if you need anything_ s, Brian manages to slip out and make it a ways down the road before he feels the mild nausea of anxiety settle over him. Unpleasant, but survivable.

Pat’s still out when he gets home, but Zuko greets him at the door and rubs against his legs with concern. Brian hurries over to the record player and turns on whatever he had been listening to last, then scoops Zuko up like a baby and paces around with him for a while until he’s settled enough to dance his feelings out.

And that’s how Pat finds him, an album or so later, wailing tunelessly and pitching himself here and there, the precision in his voice and body worn down from chasing his nerves away.

“Hey Pat,” he says, breathless and sweaty, hunching over with his hands on his knees for a moment.

“Hey,” Pat says, carefully casual. He puts a gentle hand on Brian’s shoulder, “How’s it going?”

Brian laughs ragged and takes Pat by the wrist, moves his hand to his forehead and sighs contentedly against the coolness of it. “Oh,” he huffs out another laugh, “y’know. It’s a day.”

Pat pulls a face and tenses his hand against Brian’s sweaty forehead, but steels himself and keeps it there. “I’ve gotta do some garden stuff, will you keep me company?”

“Sure,” Brian says, nodding emphatically and letting the momentum of it keep his head bobbing. He grabs his hat and ukulele and marches out the door to go find an upturned bucket to sit on.

He helps out sometimes with the watering since Pat can’t lift a full watering can. It rained enough last night and stayed cool enough today that, as far as he can tell anyway, there’s nothing too tedious to be done. He strums along as Pat checks for pests and makes sure everything is coming along alright, tries to give his voice a rest and pluck out a tune in relation to what Pat’s doing.

He catches on, eventually, starts repeating motions or stopping suddenly or turning around fast for no reason to trigger an appropriate riff.

Brian’s pretty sure that whatever work there was to be done had been dragged out and finished long before this improvised soundtrack game ends. Charles eventually joining them outside definitely helped extend it. It’s getting difficult to see outside in the fading twilight before they make their way back in.

“Will it warm up soon?” Brian asks while sautéing a special blend of vegetables-that-needed-to-be-cooked-soonest and just enough chicken to be filling. He stirs lazily with his magic, unwilling to wash the spatula.

“Maybe,” Pat says, busying himself with playing solitaire. “Hopefully. But more rain is good too.”

After losing one too many times, Pat moves on to building a card house. Brian almost forgets to finish his dinner at this point, too eager to join in and build something unnecessarily complicated where Pat was just trying to make a traditional triangles-upon-triangles structure.

“Can’t you just make it all stay up with magic?” Pat asks, watching cards collapse once again.

“That’s _cheating_ , Patrick,” Brian scolds, setting up again with increasing determination.

“This house probably isn’t even level,” Pat says. “It’s just evening the playing field.”

“Is that a pun?”

“Uh… almost, I guess, yeah.”

Brian swishes his hand through the air and sends a card flying at Pat.

Pat gets a wicked look in his eye and sits up on his knees, leans over and shoves Brian’s shoulder hard enough to unbalance him from where he’s been crouching down on his toes.

Before he can even get up and feign indignation, Pat’s laughing and scrambling out the front door.

He follows in hot pursuit, waving his hand to flick the light off as he goes, and gets himself a light orb low toward the ground as soon as he steps barefoot out into the night and calls, “Pat Gill you _glow_ , I can _see you_!”

There’s just more laughter in response, he swears he can even see Pat biting his tongue through his grin with his face all scrunched up in glee. “Don’t make me tell Tara you’re bullying me,” he threatens emptily, making his way carefully over, wary of any rocks or snails on the ground.

“You can push back, you know.”

“No way, Pat, I’ll end up accidentally throwing you into a wall or something. Which would be great for my ego but I know my own strength and it is not that.”

Pat sighs and runs a hand through his hair. “I mean, that’s fine. I just miss it, sometimes. Wrestling and stuff.”

“I don’t know if I’m the right kind of guy to recreationally throw someone around,” Brian says, trying to let him down gently and walk himself out of a dangerous and tempting conversation. “Best you could get out of me is probably carrying you and then accidentally dropping you.”

At least Pat does really laugh at that, mutters, “Spillbert,”and rolls his eyes. “Here, let me try picking you up.”

Before Brian can process that request, much less protest it, Pat’s ducked down and wrapped an arm around one of his legs and there’s just enough time for Brian to yelp in surprise, just a _moment_ where he’s off the ground, before his leg goes through Pat’s arm with a quick and sudden chill and then he’s stumbling on the ground, catching himself with his fingertips to stay upright.

“Good try,” he says, giving a thumbs up to signal that he’s alright.

Pat groans in frustration, drags his hands down his face and looks up at the sky. “That used to be so _easy_ ,” he says.

“You’re good, you don’t need to carry me. I’m a modern man, I can carry myself.” He sidles over to Pat, bumps their shoulders together. “On the bright side, your body still has muscles.”

Pat rolls his eyes, flexes an arm, and laughs when Brian squeezes his bicep appraisingly. “Whatever. Sorry I almost dropped you.”

“You _did_ drop me,” Brian corrects. “But it’s fine.” He pauses, looks up. His orb of light disappeared when Pat first lifted him, so now it’s just the clear, moonless night and the unfathomable number of stars above and the gentle glow of Pat beside him.

He sits down, wordlessly, still craning his neck up at the sky until he settles back to lay in the dirt.

“Want me to get your cloak?” Pat asks, then joins him in laying on the ground when Brian shakes his head in response.

They’re quiet for a long time, Brian with his arms under his head and Pat with his hands clasped over his stomach.

“Thanks for today,” Brian says. “For keeping my mind busy. I needed the help.”

“Any time,” Pat says, soft.

It’s too cold out still to entertain the possibility of sleeping under the stars. Brian’s heart aches at the missed opportunities he had to do so in the summer.

“Do you know constellations?” Pat asks.

“Only the common ones everyone knows.”

“That’s not a witch thing?”

“Not my kind of witch thing.”

“I learned a little bit for navigating,” Pat says, pointing out a handful of allegedly important stars. “It’s not like I was out to sea or anything, though.”

“You ever think about becoming a sailor while you were away?”

He laughs, “No way. I’ve never even met a sailor.”

“I wouldn’t even know where to _find_ a sailor.”

“You’re probably just supposed to keep asking people about where to find sailors until you get to someone who has an answer.”

“I’ll take your word for it. Is that how you found farmers?”

“Of course. And that’s how people find witches, too, I bet.”

“Only if we want to be found,” Brian says with a mysterious affectation.

They’re quiet again, save for the wind through the trees. Brian can see Pat fussing with the buttons on one of his shirtsleeves out the corner of his eye.

It’s sudden, when Pat turns his head to look him in the eye and says, tentatively, “Brian?”

“Yeah? What’s up?” He can feel Pat’s nerves reverberate in his own immediately.

“I…” Pat starts, and he’s only quiet for a moment but it feels endless, laying together under the stars. “I planted strawberries.”

Something’s getting lost in translation. Pat’s eyes are so earnestly searching his own and he’s putting so much weight into his words. Brian doesn’t have enough context though, doesn’t want to disappoint him with his ignorance.

Are strawberries difficult to grow? Are they expensive? Delicate? Rare in these parts?

“Thank you,” he says. It feels like a safe choice, and he says it genuinely but not _meaningfully_.

Pat winces, then smiles and nods and sighs, looking back up at the stars.

“Will they be ready soon?” Brian asks, grasping at straws trying to find the response Pat was looking for.

“When it’s warm,” Pat says, quiet. “Maybe by the end of the month.”

“That’s great!” He says, forcing enthusiasm. _I hope I get to try them,_ he does not say.

Brian can’t figure out what he’s saying wrong. It’s like they’re having two different conversations with each other. Maybe Pat’s just in a mood. For his part, Brian is suddenly very tired.

The stars burn on, indifferent observers of this and all other interactions. Brian takes another few breaths to temper the intensity of his feelings against the enormity of the sky.

All those stars in the sky, are any already burned out? Is the last of their light still traveling through space at this moment in a celestial extinction burst, or will it still be there when Brian’s done pressing the heels of his palms so hard into his eyes that new stars burst to life under his eyelids?

He gets himself standing again, brushing the dirt off his back perfunctorily before reaching a hand down to help Pat up. It’s so easy, almost effortless, helping him back to his feet. He really could carry Pat easily if he had to. If he was asked to.

 _I should have shown him by now_ , is what Brian thinks that night in bed. _I know how to do what I wanted to, I should’ve just used my dinner_

When will the right moment be? Will Pat be mad that he didn’t show him right away? What will justify waiting all this time? What will justify everything he is and does?

He can feel the anxiety spiral pulling him in, and instead veers himself hard in the other direction—even turns himself over onto his other side in bed, facing toward Pat.

If he’s going to do this, he’s going to do it _right._


	11. Spring II

It’s dark out, Brian can tell that without opening his eyes. And it’s quiet, still night time. Perhaps Zuko had a vivid dream that sent him twitching to wakefulness with a stronger reaction than usual.

Normally this moment would be forgotten, would fade seamlessly into another wave of slumber. Certainly he’s experienced this breach into wakefulness brought about by his familiar more times than he could imagine.

But there are cool fingers skimming ever-so-lightly through his hair.

Somehow this doesn’t pull him up from the depths immediately. He can’t hear or feel whether or not Pat’s breathing, and that thought floats past him as soon as he’s had it. He’s on his back, but the task of cracking an eye open feels insurmountable.

It could be that this is just some sleep-soothing repetitive motion. Laura’d once shocked him awake—literally, with sparks—when it turned out he’d been drumming his fingertips against their shared wall in his sleep.

And before he can consider moving, if he’s even capable of consideration in this state of mind, he’s already turned instinctively toward Pat and wrapped his arms around him shamelessly.

It’s almost like an out of body experience, this peek behind the curtains into his own sleeping habits. _Ah,_ he thinks distantly, _so this is how it happens every night_.

He’s too tired to care or fret over how this affects him, morally. He just sighs contentedly as Pat resumes stroking his hair, and melts back into a dream as Pat’s breath brushes light over the side of his face.

 

The answer is obvious when it comes to him. It’s so obvious he doesn’t even feel _excited_ about it in the way he would have expected, just the calm realization of an inevitable conclusion.

It’s early afternoon—later than he’d usually go to try and meet Jenna—but he goes ahead and walks to Simone’s anyway. It’s not warm yet, but it’s warm enough that he regrets bringing the quilted cloak along with him and ends up carrying it over his arm most of the way, unable to shake the uncomfortable sweaty flushed feeling from his body.

Simone’s still has the fire going and he slumps over the bar miserably and whines, “You’re gonna melt me!” the moment he sits down.

“You were just here last night,” Simone says, but not in an accusatory way. “Need a little hair of the dog? Oh, wait, is that an actual witch thing?”

“I don’t want to ruin the mystery,” Brian says. It is not an actual witch thing. “But no, just hungry today. Can I get some pizza?”

“You got it!” Simone says, and then she’s off to do her job.

Brian’s been here alone plenty of times, especially recently, but he has nothing and no one to distract him. That, combined with his eagerness to get down to work, has him shifting continuously and swinging his feet and drumming his fingers. He changes tactics, starts bouncing a spark on his fingertips in the air, and lets his mind wander.

He feels strangely confident about this. More confident than he’s felt about any other stage of his thesis studies, at least. He’s already gotten this far, why would this particular variant be an obstacle? He just has to take some time to get familiar with the components, adjust them to a good balance, and practice being able to do it in a timely manner. Easy-peasy.

The pizza here had tasted predictably transcendent when he first eaten it after days of oatmeal, but even on the occasions he’s had it since then it’s still been solidly good. Jenna’d even talked about it with him once, how she’d experimented with different doughs and crust thicknesses and how she liked the rustic look of personal pizzas that aren’t perfectly round, about where she’d picked up different techniques.

It’s no trouble to eat half of it—there’s always room in his stomach for pizza—and then wrap the rest in several napkins, hope that’s enough to absorb a few minutes’ worth of grease as he stashes the remainder in his bag.

Jenna pokes her head out the order window while he’s settling his tab at the register and they wave at each other in passing before returning to their respective tasks. It’s a little difficult, knowing she’s _right there_ and wanting to discuss this immediately, but despite all the rumors, Brian _can_ be patient.

He makes it just a few yards down the street home before he hangs up his cloak on a low branch and steps in past the trees just enough to either hide or look incredibly suspicious if he’s poorly hidden.

The napkins are well-greased in certain spots but it would appear no damage was done to the interior of his bag or the rest of its contents. More importantly, the pizza is still intact and the cheese is still warm enough that it hasn’t congealed into a warped solid mass.

His initial attempts at getting the whole thing in one go are, of course, wishful thinking. He begrudgingly sets to picking at different components after rolling his eyes unnecessarily at the pizza.

Crust isn’t difficult, he’s gotten the flavor out of different breads a few times, and cheese isn’t the worst thing he’s worked with dairy-wise.

Pepperoni, though, is surprising in its difficulty. The spices and the meatiness of it require finesse not only to grab in the first place, but to then balance out into a coherent and immediately recognizable flavor. As he keeps trying, his tongue ends up more and more fatigued by the salt and heat until the point that he just can’t taste properly.

He eats a bite of just crust to try and calm his burning palate and then stashes the remainder in his bag again to try later if he has more time alone.

Excitement builds up in him on a delay. He’s _so close_ now, it could just be another day before he’s got it down and he can finally, finally conclude his research. It’s enough of a rush that, at least for this moment, he can shake off his internal _but what next?_

 

Brian almost gets caught in the act with his pizza late that afternoon when Pat barges in a few hours earlier than usual. Luckily, Pat is also distracted with pacing around and grabbing at his face and hair in frustrated agony while Brian—in a moment of extreme subtle brilliance—slams his hat down on top of the pizza.

“Woah, Pat, what happened?” Between Pat’s demeanor and this close call, Brian is immediately alarmed.

“I can’t feel feelings for more things,” Pat all-but-wails, stomping around deliberately. “Nature needs to knock it off! Stop it!”

Brian must look so concerned— _frightened_ —that Pat sighs heavily and winces hard and elaborates, “I saw a baby deer and it was fucking adorable and I don’t have room in my heart to love beautiful animals.”

Charles rubs against him as if on cue and Pat scoops him up, elaborating, “Charles has taken up all of that room.”

It almost feels like Brian should be angry about Pat’s histrionics had him so intensely worried, but instead he laughs it off in relief. “What a horrible day you’ve had, hm? Didn’t realize you were such a softy, Pat Gill.”

Pat huffs. “It was fine when it was just walking by but then its momma showed up and led it to the garden and I _don’t want them there_ but I couldn’t stop them because I thought, ‘Shit he’s gonna feed the fucking baby!’ I can’t do this anymore!”

“So you fled rather than bear witness to the wanton destruction of your garden?”

He hangs his head in defeat. “I can’t be hurt again, I can’t get hurt again.”

“Well, if you wait long enough then it’ll grow up and you can shoo it away with a clear conscience.”

“That’s been my strategy so far.”

“How’s that working out for you?”

Finally he gets a laugh out of Pat. “Great. Real good. Charles loves it because I always end up running home to him. It’s too cute and I have no one else to take it out on so he gets some good hugs in.”

Brian attempts a contemplative hum but it comes a little too close to a strangled whine as he clenches his fist, digging his nails into his palm to stop himself from steering this conversation in a bad direction.

One more month. Stay the course.

He clears his throat and runs his hand through his hair. “Would it help if I put on your favorite song?”

“No, I—what? I don’t have a favorite song. What do you think my favorite song is?”

“Oh, you know,” Brian says with a lilt, making a show of sashaying to the record player. He’s buying himself time, really. There are songs that he knows Pat enjoys, much as he might try to hide it. He’s seen him tap along with them. A few, he’s even asked the title of.

Personally, Brian has no problems with sincerity. He doesn’t need to deflect, hasn’t been taught by the world to guard his heart. He knows he’s fortunate, to have been able to live his life as openly as he pleases without having that turned against him.

He knows that in some situations, in this situation, sincerity has the potential to be dangerous. To be meaningful, to tip his hand too far, to push too close instead of pulling back. Brian has no problems with indulgence, either, but he’s not the only person involved in this situation and he _does_ have problems with self-control and he needs to fix it fucking _now_.  
One more month.

So he puts on a silly song, and it’s fine. It’s good. Pat laughs and tosses his head back and his cheeks are dimpled when he faces Brian again and they have a nice moment. A nice evening. Pat makes Charles dance and Brian helps him in the garden later, observes the damage brought on by the deer, and sings along with an album while he makes dinner.

And his heart’s _still_ aching when he lays down to sleep.

 

The following morning, Brian wakes too early with his hand sandwiched between Pat’s hand and chest, feeling the slow rise and fall of his breath.

It feels unfair, that Pat has such a noticeable tell when he’s awake and, so far as he’s aware, Brian does not. So he pretends, same as always. He lays as still as possible, tries to keep his breathing deep and his heart sleep-slow and catalogue every point of contact between them and, if he’s lucky, fall asleep with these meditations.

He’s not lucky, today. He’s going stir-crazy, awake and trying to stay still in the prison of a static pose.

Pat sighs, moves his hand, whispers, “I’ve gotta get going,” before doing just that.

“How’d you know I’m awake?” Brian asks, any remaining grogginess banished by the shock of being found out.

“Lucky guess,” Pat says, getting to his feet and ruffling Brian’s hair. “It’s really early, go back to sleep.”

“Thanks,” Brian says, nonsensically.

It’s like a spell. Pat says sleep, his body obeys. Or maybe the absence of Pat drains his energy. Or he’s tired and thinking dumb things and drifting back into dreams before Pat’s even out the door, only distantly aware of Charles curling up on his chest.

 

His second attempt at awakening sticks. It’s still morning, thankfully, and he wastes no time in getting ready to head into town. There’s no need for breakfast first since he’s going to eat anyway, so only fifteen minutes pass between waking and closing the door behind himself and Zuko.

The ground is warm enough today that Zuko was the one asking to come along, leading the way and stopping now and then to smell a new plant. He asks for treats about halfway there and Brian wonders if he can smell them or if he saw Brian pocket them or if he just _knows_.

It seems—and perhaps it’s just wishful thinking on his part—that it might be a warm day today. It’s still a far cry from being hot out, but all the hours in the woods and fields have worn at the knees of his denim pants and although he’s certainly jumping the gun, today might just be the day he transforms them into shorts like a ritual to welcome in the summer.

But, first things first. He’s learned, now, what days have their regulars and when Simone’s is most likely to be empty enough to afford Jenna some time to talk to him. She’d been very upfront about her priorities on the job, and Brian had spent long gaps of time sitting alone at the bar finding out that she was genuinely that diligent.

Jenna’s busy when Brian gets in, but she passes by long enough for him to get a pizza order in while she’s still doing her rounds.

“You’ve got a whole two tables more than usual,” Brian muses when she finally delivers his plate to him and rests casually against the bar.

“Big family passing through on their way to Weybridge. We don’t usually get a lot of food orders this early, but they’ll be gone soon.” She eyes his hands, working eagerly over the pizza. “How’s that going? Do you just need a second taster?”

“If you don’t mind, yeah,” he says, and he can hardly believe he’s able to voice his plan with finality when he says, “But I want you to teach me how to make it, too. I want to be able to make it fresh at home.”

She purses her lips in thought, looks up like she’s calculating what that will involve. “Yeah,” she concludes, “I think I can make that happen. You’re not hopeless in the kitchen or anything, right?”

“Not anymore,” he says cryptically.

“I can work with that. We’ll have you make it here a few times, get some practice in. But you’ve gotta get these fundamentals down first.”

He divides his personal pizza into quarters and works with one while Jenna’s busy with her work. It takes a while, he’s still picking at it even when the family’s all made their way back to their cars and Jenna’s cleared their tables. Eventually, though, he gets some semblance of a balance of components to try and samples half of it himself before calling Jenna over quick and tense, holding his hand stiff in midair out of fear that he’ll drop everything otherwise.

Jenna’s probably the best partner Brian’s ever had next to Laura when it comes to magic. It’s especially impressive given that she can’t understand the fundamental spellwork going on. But she considers everything very thoroughly and is never dismissive of questions or shy about feedback. She’s upfront and honest and thoughtful.

So he takes everything she says to heart when it comes to the balance of the flavors. He takes no offense when she’s to-the-point about how he’s neglecting temperature, and immediately tries to make corrections, to find those nuances in the tomato sauce and the pepperoni that he wouldn’t have known how to classify otherwise.

The fawning attention of non-witches is intoxicating much of the time. Brian loves how easily he can mesmerize and earn the interest and even admiration of people around him with something that, while learned, is also such an inherent part of his being. But he also needs people like Jenna, like Laura, like Jonah, who know that he also wants someone other than himself to push him to be _better_.

He still doesn’t have it down well enough for Jenna to let him off the hook by the time he’s done with the first pizza, so she gets him a second one immediately and keeps him on track. It’s definitely at the point where it’s satisfactory. It’s definitely _pizza_. But it’s not _good_ pizza, not yet anyway.

The second pizza, Jenna cuts into sixths. She’s already got individual components for him to focus on assigned to the first three slices before he’s even got his hands near enough to feel them.

Brian needs a water break to give his palate a rest before the third pizza comes out of the oven. Jenna also gets him one of the end slices of bread that she can’t use for sandwiches. They talk about their days, about how Brian hopes it’ll warm up soon, about how Jenna heard there’s going to be a storm coming in, about how Brian’s going to optimistically turn his pants into shorts anyway.

After well over two hours and two and a half unconsumed but thoroughly tasted personal pepperoni pizzas, Brian looks on hopefully to as Jenna takes her time before smiling and nodding definitively.

“Again.”

And he does it. Well, the first time he tries it again, he’s slipped up on the oven char of the crust, but Jenna gently steers him back to that ideal balance and he’s successful on all subsequent attempts. A little faster each time, too.

“I think we can work on speed more while you’re learning to make it,” Jenna suggests. “More efficient to do it that way. Unless you want to keep buying pizzas?”

Brian blanches, having forgotten about payment since they usually experimented at Jenna’s home.

“I uh… yeah. Let’s stop with the pizzas.”

He settles his tab with a sick little lurch, able to quickly calculate exactly what percentage of his remaining stipend he just spent. _Well, this is literally what it’s there for._

They make plans for him to come in early tomorrow. Simone’s isn’t even _open_ then, he points out, but Jenna has a key and it’s the only way they’ll be able to work uninterrupted.

And so he slips out with a plan to arrive early at the back door and feels a thrill of sneaky pleasure at having made so much progress without Simone even knowing he was there.

 

Having made it home safely and stealthily, Brian changes into his existing denim shorts and lays his pants down flat on the floor. He considers them seriously enough that Zuko walks over to inspect the current goings-on and sits on top of them, dissatisfied with the amount of attention that is not being paid to him.

A good ten minutes of play time later, Brian returns only to find that Charles has taken the opportunity to lay on the pants.

He plies both cats away with treats and then moves his work onto the table with no small amount of exasperation.

Without sewing shears handy, it’s much easier to do this with magic. Less likely to result in injury, too. Brian waves his hand without purpose a few times in order to get a feel for the correct pathways.

It feels ceremonial, to transfer his feelings about changing phases of his life into something as benign as an article of clothing. These were university pants, and perhaps more significantly, thesis pants. They will be graduate shorts.

He begins to pick at the threads of magic lightly while also running his hands down the grain of the denim. Physically and magically, he feels dirt and plants and cat hair and rain and snow and food and drink and all manner of things he’s washed out as thoroughly as one can but which leave indelible traces within fabrics the way they do with memories in the mind.

They’ve been washed recently enough that he doesn’t feel the need to go through the process again at this point. It will be nice to have less fabric to clean, less sopping bulk to heft out of the tub.

There are lateral paths through the grain of the denim that yield more readily than any old straight line, so Brian begins to carefully push at those.

He doesn’t often wield magic that is an objective physical force, preferring to work alongside his materials. There are, of course, rules and laws and oaths he’s sworn to obey regarding damage that can be done with his abilities, but those aren’t abilities he’s honed in the first place.

Perhaps it’s this inexperience that always makes using them, even in a situation as harmless as this, feel harrowing. It’s a reminder of a power that he has, that he could have. A power that others certainly possess. He does not want to inflict pain, wants to live a life that is as much a net positive in the world as possible. But he can cut denim, picking through physical threads like a seam ripper, and even without magic, even unintentionally, he can hurt people too.

So it’s always a relief, when that part ends. The jeans are cut, transformed in perhaps the least magical usage of the term possible while still involving spellwork. He tries them on, a fit both familiar and new, and shimmies around on the wood floor in his socks to grow accustomed to them while Zuko resolutely faces away from him and his antics.

Later on, when Pat comes in for the evening, he does more demonstrative shimmying to try and convey the upgrade he’s made to his seasonal wardrobe. Pat stares hard at his thighs, but he can’t get more than a half-convinced, “Huh,” out of him.

Unwilling to let his abilities be so taken for granted, or to stand still and red-faced and let himself be ogled, Brian cranks up the volume on the record player and does some exaggerated dancing, movements too silly to be sensual. He waves fine orange shimmering lights into the air, streaks purple lights from his fingertips as he spins, points his fingers up and creates small green fireworks polka-dotting over their heads perilously close to the ceiling.

He didn’t learn all of this showy performance magic from Laura to _not_ wriggle his way out of a difficult situation.

He collapses onto the mattress with the last beat of the song and savors the harmless laughter he’s sharing with Pat, though the pounding of his heart betrays how close he keeps coming to skirting dangerous territory with the limits of his self-control.

 

It’s been months since Brian’s used an alarm clock. The sound of it is jarring enough that he’s immediately awake, rolling out of bed and disturbing Zuko and Charles, who are settled back to back on the empty space beside him. It had been more difficult, in academy and even in high school before that, when reflexes had necessitated clocks loud enough to resist a muffling spell and heavy enough to thwart sleepy attempts to fling them into the wall.

Pat’s up in the field, probably. Brian has a vague recollection of trying to hold on as Pat disentangled their limbs and slipped away while it was barely light out. He’d been tucked in pretty tight when he woke up, but he has no memory of that happening.

His heart curls in on itself while he’s standing in the bathroom brushing his teeth and he pauses a moment to brace himself on either side of the sink. He spits, rinses his mouth, and then splashes water on his face with an unnecessary intensity.

“Stop it,” he grits out to his own tired, wet reflection. He could magic the water away, and he probably will once he’s determined that he’s suffered enough, but he needs to _cool it_.

One month. _Less_ than one month, now. He’s leaving in a very short span of time and he cannot nurture these tender feelings any more than he already has. He can’t toy with Pat’s heart like that. He can’t pick him up and drop him and _leave_ like other people have. He can’t have spent so, so much time hoping to try and make things better and leave them irreparably worse.

He can’t ruin this.

And yet, he slips out into the brisk, cloudy morning—shivering and walking fast in his new shorts and linen cloak—and knows that what he is actively doing right now is definitely not helping in his quest to maintain an appropriate emotional distance.

There’s a low fog at his feet, dissipating already as the morning goes on. He absentmindedly drifts an orb of light around it, tracking its less-defined edges to keep himself at least a little preoccupied.

If it were still one-sided, it would be fine. Brian is comfortable with unrequited love. Pining is the birth of all innovation, surely there are enough songs and books to back that up. And spells. But Pat’s been reaching out to him, too, in his own way. Pat’s been watching and responding and warming to him and he’s not being _conceited_ , he’s just not _oblivious_.

And he’d also like very much to not be an asshole.

By the time he’s at the back door to Simone’s, propped open with a loose brick as promised, he’s fortified the cracking foundations of his resolve, he’s got goosebumps from the cold while simultaneously sweating, and he’s extremely ready to distract himself with a cooking lesson.

“Hey there,” Jenna chirps at him, wide awake and waving a large knife at him before turning back around to continue slicing carrots. “I was just getting some prep work done early but we can get started in just a sec.”

“How long have you _been_ here?” Brian asks, removing his cloak and hat and inspecting his surroundings until Jenna points—with the knife, again—to a table in a far corner where her rucksack is.

“Not crazy early,” she says, laughing, “I like to get in here to mess around without having to dirty up the home kitchen sometimes. It’s nothing unusual.” She slides all the carrot slices into a container, slaps a lid on it, and stashes it in a cooler all with casual speed and efficiency before stepping promptly to the sink and washing off her knife and cutting board. “Plus, I had to mix the dough. You ready to get going? Want an apron?”

“Huh? Oh, yeah.” He finishes folding his apron on the table and grabs an apron off a hook on the wall. “I guess it’d be pretty conspicuous to show up covered in like, pizza sauce.”

“Absolutely. Okay, so on that note, do you want to make a sauce from scratch? It’s totally doable, but I can also just give you some.”

“I’d like to make everything,” he says immediately. “Even the dough.”

She considers it with a discouraging expression. “You… _could_. Have you ever made bread before?”

“Nope.”

“It’s a whole other ball game,” she explains. “It takes more than a day of practice to learn everything. I mean, if you wanted to get really into it,” she perks up slightly, “we could learn to make our own pepperoni, too. And cheese! I’ve always wanted to give that a try—“

“That’s okay,” he cuts her off. “I’m… maybe too impatient for that after all. I got my mind set on being done after this, sorry.”

“All good,” she says, easily. “I might try to get started on those things, though, if you ever want to come by and learn. But for now: sauce!”

Jenna segues smoothly enough into teaching him the recipe she uses, even making the concession to allow him to write down instructions after swearing him to secrecy. She tells him how, if they were in season, she’d have him slicing and mashing tomatoes into a thick puree, then pulls out a jar of crushed tomatoes from the market and tells him what kind to look for. She does her best to estimate the amounts of spices and splash of red wine vinegar she’s adding by feel and memory.

“I don’t have vinegar,” Brian says uneasily. It wouldn’t be a great thing to have to buy now, he wouldn’t be able to use it up.

“I’ll send you with some,” Jenna says simply, then sets the bowl aside for later.

Jenna walks over closer to the oven and retrieves a larger bowl from a cabinet, setting it down in front of Brian and ceremoniously removing the damp cloth from the top of it to reveal a rounded ball of dough, the top of it reaching nearly to the height of the lip of the bowl.

“Let’s divide this bad boy up,” she says mischievously, and turns to a wooden table beside the one they’ve been using. She grabs a handful of flour from a small container atop the table and throws it low in the air over the table with a flick of her wrist.

The flour spreads in a fairly even light dust over the table as if by magic.

“Can I try?” Brian asks, and Jenna laughs and nods. She laughs even harder when he does try and, despite his proficiency with subtle and precise arm movements, dots the table with more of a scattered line of flour than another dusting.

“It takes practice,” she consoles him, turning out the dough bowl onto the table.

As she divides it into quarters, she assures him he's not expected to get a _perfect_ circle going, just enough to get the elasticity right.

She demonstrates with one pieces, pushing the corners in gently as if merely suggesting to the dough that it may want to consider becoming round.

“This part’s fun,” she warns before she starts smacking the dough down in earnest, beating it flat against the table and then, when that can get it no flatter, lifting it and stretching around its perimeter by hand, letting its own weight drag it thinner while shuffling around it with her hands. 

“You don’t… toss it in the air?” Brian feels dumb for asking before he’s even finished his sentence.

But Jenna just smiles and says, casually, “You could but I don’t make a dough that’s very good for that. Plus if you drop it or tear it, it’s annoying. We don’t make enough pizza to have the dough to handle that kind of a loss.”

She assesses his disappointment quickly before adding, “If you do well enough on the first two, I’ll let you toss the third one.”

Suitably motivated, Brian struggles his way through a lumpy first attempt, then lets Jenna talk him through a passable second attempt. For the third, he gets his promised attempt at throwing the dough into the air, but it lands lopsided on his hands and stretches awkwardly and he can see why Jenna doesn’t recommend it in this case, with his inexpert abilities.

Adding toppings to a pizza is, thankfully, just as intuitive as Brian had always assumed. Jenna gives him a few tips on proportions to consider but is otherwise fine with his distribution of cheese and the narrow width of his pepperoni slices.

“You have to get really precise with some potion ingredient lengths,” Brian explains. “Not that I’ve ever needed to use pepperoni in a potion.”

“I don’t know how hot you can get your oven,” Jenna tells him after she slips the pans into hers, “so you’ll probably have to keep a closer eye on things at home.”

Brian helps with cleaning, washing bowls and knives until Jenna calls him over to show him the baking progress, “This is about halfway there, time-wise.”

And, “This is as light as I’d be comfortable with stopping it,” as she removes one of Brian’s pizzas first.

And, “This is a good average bake, how I usually do it,” as she removes her own pizza, the edges of the pepperoni just barely crisped.

And, “I wouldn’t go darker than this,” with the last one, the crust blackened at some points and the pepperoni edges brown with some charred sides.

Jenna insists he lets them rest while Brian finishes cleaning what he knows how to clean.

“So which of these should I shoot for?” Brian asks, sipping at some water and looking over the gradient of pizzas.

“Go ahead and try all of them to know what you want,” Jenna suggests, “but any one of them should be acceptable. Maybe not the darkest one, depending on your tastes, but if you take it that far it’s not unsalvageable.”

It’s not unfair, Brian thinks, to say that he has been unbelievably patient lately. There have been so many stopping points he’s run past in favor of this particular goal. And yet, now that it is here, just inches from his grasp, every infinitesimal measurement of progress feels like it is going to be the breaking point in that patience. His well has run dry. This needs to _happen_.

But he practices and, he must begrudgingly admit, he is getting faster and more accurate with every attempt. Jenna has next to nothing to say about the balance of flavors, just smiles and nods and encourages him.

“I think I might be done?” Brian says, less of a statement than he’d intended it to be. “I mean, I think I could do this tonight. Is that possible?”

“Oh, totally,” Jenna says, walking over to a refrigerator. and retrieving a small covered bowl. “I separated some dough earlier and slowed it down for you in case you wanted to do that. Just take it out and set it in a cupboard that doesn’t get too hot—hmm…two or three hours before you want to make it.”

He takes the bowl and stares at it with an odd feeling of finality. “Got it,” he hears himself say, pulling his hat and cloak back on.

She grabs a small jar and adds a generous splash of red wine vinegar to it, double checks that he’s written down the right amount of ingredients, stacks a small round pizza pan on top of the bowl he’s still holding and steps back with her hands on her hips to take stock of him. “Brian David Gilbert, you are officially ready to make a pizza.”

“Thank you,” he says, snapping out of his head enough to say it meaningfully. “I’ll report back on how it goes and uh… I’ll come by to hang out more, before I leave.”

“We’ll have another game night,” Jenna assures him, then walks over to hold the back door open for him, kicking the brick that’d held it open earlier further out of the way.

Brian takes the cue and slips outside and onward into the day. It’s still morning, but the low fog has fully lifted and either it’s warmed up or Brian’s just been standing in front of an oven long enough to permanently raise his core temperature.

He finds that he wants to run home and start right away, but no, dinner is the best time for this. Pat will be home then, he won’t have to try to fetch him from the garden and hope the timing works out right.

It’s not until he’s walking down the street home before he realizes he needs multiple ingredients still, does some back and forth shimmying, and then stashes his dough and pan underneath his cloak behind a tree while he dashes back into town.

Clayton pays no mind to his hard breathing or his face reddened by the effort of speed walking the whole way there, just kindly directs him to the unflavored crushed tomatoes when Brian struggles to tell one jar from the next. The pepperoni price, even for a small amount, is especially unfriendly. Boy oh boy, is his wallet ever getting light. He wonders if Pat could let him get away with a strict oatmeal diet on his last week, or if he’ll perhaps be able to catch fish again.

So he marches homeward again, for real this time, and begins to put his last big plan into motion.

 

Normally, in a situation like this, time would flow like molasses. Somehow Brian feels like he blinks and an hour passes. Everything is staged properly where he needs it, and he’s set the dough out early just in case, and just by playing music and doing a bit of tidying he’s somehow found himself with only an hour to spare before he needs to get started.

He’s _nervous_ , is the thing. Excited, yes, because he’s pretty sure he can do this and he can finally show off all his hard work and it’s going to _work_ , but still nervous.

Zuko is annoyed with his pacing and fidgeting, so he pulls his shoes on and goes for a quick walk. Pat’s still out at the field, but he’ll finish up in the garden before long. It’s so dark already, the sky thick with heavy clouds and the air heavy with the promise of rain. Pat won’t have to water, at least.

Brian looks all down the different rows of plants, inspecting them closely until he finds the strawberries. He’d never given much thought to having to identify a strawberry plant before, but that’s definitely them alright, with small green nubs just barely having begun to grow and delicate white flowers still in bloom.

Maybe he should’ve got flowers. Set the table nice. Oh, but they only even have one chair between the two of them…

And that’s really not the kind of atmosphere he should be going for here. Restraint, Gilbert.

There’s so much green all around him. Brian’s been in the woods before, not just here but elsewhere, but he hasn’t spent much time anywhere so lush and cared for. He drinks the sight in greedily and tries to burn this moment into his memory. The sparse birdsong, the heavy air, the dim light on the growing garden, the warm light from the witch house spilling out from the door he’d left open.

He takes a few measured breaths, then walks back inside to get started. It’s still a little early, but with the coming rain Pat will probably be early as well.

The process is certainly slower than when he worked with Jenna this morning. He refers to his notes often, taste tests too frequently, tries to do everything as precise as a spell. It doesn’t work that way, though. It’s _rustic_.

It’s not a potion, it’s a pizza, and there’s only so much to it, and it’s not all that long until Brian’s got it in the oven and all he has to do is wait patiently and resist the urge to keep checking it and letting all the heat out.

When it’s at its lightest stage, Pat comes in, smiling and stretching in the doorway and shaking rainwater from his arms.

“You’re in a good mood,” Brian observes as casually as possible.

“Started raining,” Pat explains. “Don’t have to water. I’m always happy to save time on that.”

Brian hums in response, watches Charles rub up against Pat in greeting, and waits as long as he can before peeking in the oven door again. It’ll just be another couple minutes.

“Woah, smells good,” Pat says, making a beeline for him. “Are you making pizza?”

“Yeah,” Brian says. It probably comes out very normally but he feels like he’s been caught red-handed, feels nervous-dizzy.

But Pat just grins wide and breathes in deep again, closing his eyes to sharpen whatever scents he can pull from the air. “Good choice,” he adds dreamily.

“Thanks. You can, uh, I’ll give you half to smell all you want.”

He laughs a little at that, but doesn’t turn it down.

Getting out plates and a knife and locating the one trivet in the kitchen is all he has time to do before the pizza is sufficiently done, right on the money for ideal pizza doneness according to Jenna. Brian grabs it with two oven-mitted hands, heart falling with the sudden fear of dropping it even though he’s literally just placing it on the counter beside him.

Just a few minutes to wait for it to cool. Five or ten, Jenna had said. Don’t want to burn anyone.

A record ends with a click of finality and Brian rushes over to the safe distraction of selecting a new one. “Any requests?”

Pat unhelpfully shrugs, then shakes his head. Something instrumental, then. Easy to concentrate with.

Brian isn’t unfamiliar with stage fright. That’s all these nerves are, right now. He’s used to feeling them and working through and past them and he’s experienced them enough to not get so tripped up by them anymore. But it’s been a while since he’s done any type of performance, since he’s felt rattled like this.

He cuts the small, personal pizza in half—even though half probably won’t fill his belly—and splits it on two plates.

His hands are _shaking_ again—so unhelpful for a witch—and he stops trying to pick up threads for a moment and just _thinks_.

This is for himself. He learned something new. He made discoveries and pushed his own boundaries.

This is for Pat, who let him into his home and his life and—Pat, who even said that the thing he missed most was pizza.

It’s a thank you and it’s an apology and it’s a hand reaching out cautiously into the dark, afraid of the excitement of what it might touch.

He breathes deep, grabs at the threads with deft motions of his fingers, then holds them in one hand while he picks up the plates with the other.

One plate in front of Pat, standing near the table, and another off on the side where he’s standing.

“You can sit,” Brian suggests, suddenly feeling too self-aware to do this while standing so close.

Pat quirks a brow, perhaps taking note of his odd behavior, perhaps just unsure why Brian wants to eat standing up, but shrugs and does so. He lifts the plate close to his face and inhales deeply, holding the breath before sighing it out.

“I need to show you what I’ve been working on,” Brian says, “you’ll have to excuse me.”

Pat looks puzzled, and his eyes dart between Brian’s had reaching for him and Brian’s face and he looks concerned. And then Brian’s fingers get near his mouth and he looks lost. And then Brian’s fingertips graze his lips featherlight and he lets those wisps of strands so thin he could be dreaming them go, transferring them fully, and Pat looks alarmed.

Then, Pat’s eyes get wide.

He claps both of his hands over his closed lips, as though to seal the taste in his mouth inescapably.

He’s trembling slightly, in the shoulders and hands, and he keeps looking frantically between Brian’s face and his hand and the plate of pizza and back up and he whispers, so quick and quiet and muffled, “Brian?”

Brian gives a hopeful smile, tries not to wring his hands in the hem of his shirt. “Did it work?”

Hands still clamped over his mouth, Pat nods vigorously while staring him straight in the eye.

With no small amount of effort, Pat does finally manage to slowly lower his hands again, gripping either side of the seat of the chair instead. “How?” he asks, voice so frail that Brian wonders if, between that and his shaky breathing, he’s stealthily crying the way he had at the fountain all those months ago.

“Oh, you know,” Brian says, shrugging and effectively downplaying triple digit hours of research with a wave of his hand, “magic.”

In a flash, Pat has launched himself up from the chair and wrapped Brian in the tightest hug he can manage. He’s actually got Brian’s arms pinned to his sides at first so that he has to wriggle a little to get them out and around to return the hug. Pat hugs even tighter, phases into him slightly and pulls back just a bit, but doesn’t jerk away like he normally would.

“What about your music?” he asks, and—oh—his voice is still whispery and tremulous and it’s making Brian’s heart feel much the same way.

“Changed my mind,” Brian says dismissively, “I’ll get around to it later. This felt more interesting.”

Pat’s silent for a long time, then he’s chanting, “thank you,” in a soft mantra into Brian’s hair while rocking them both back and forth. He rubs one of his hands up into Brian’s hair from the nape of his neck, begins carding down the length of it. It really has gotten long, now.

And Brian moves his hands low on Pat’s back and then up and under his flannel shirt, so that they’re between two layers of cold cloth.

It feels like one hard heartbeat will shatter this status quo.

Instead, it’s done by one loud horn section.

The record, which had been playing unremarkably in the corner, kicks into an energetic number that jolts Brian back immediately, and then he’s laughing at himself for getting spooked and he’s trying to laugh away the tension he just felt and Pat’s laughing a bit too and oh, his face is so hot, how can he recover from this?

The weight of the secrets and the studying and the stress lift off his shoulders all at once, then, and he begins laughing uproariously in earnest, leaping up and cheering and shouting, “I did it! It’s done!”

Pat gives a polite cheer along with him and Brian slides across the floor in his socks, stopping short in front of the record player and absolutely cranking the volume up to full. He dances for a few beats before sliding dangerously again and pausing to remove his socks.

“Pat!” he calls, “Dance!”

“Nah,” Pat demurs, “you go on.” He’s got his fingertips resting lightly over his mouth again in awe.

This room cannot contain Brian’s exuberance. He needs a bigger stage, if he’s ever going to get past the fright.

He twirls his way over to the door, throws it open, and runs out into the rain while Pat calls after him incredulously.

The music is still quite audible, it’s not raining _that_ hard, so he throws himself into it in earnest. He’s danced for Pat before, but mostly in silly and entertaining ways. He hasn’t danced with any greater purpose than to distract and amuse.

He also knows how to dance unselfconsciously, unabashedly showing off his body, knowing full well that he is a lithe motherfucker. He knows how to bow his back and stretch his arms and slide his feet smooth through the mud and swirl the rain itself around him.

After all this time and work and restraint, is it so wrong to want admiration?

Is it so wrong to _want?_

The song ends just as bombastically as it began and Brian runs, feet slapping on the muddy ground, back to Pat leaning against the doorframe to drag him out into the rain also.

This next song is slow, and Brian begs, “Dance with me, Pat Gill.”

“No, I’m not—“ Pat stammers, “I don’t know how. I can’t. I’m good watching.”

“I’ll teach you, come on,” Brian whines, knowing full well that if Pat was truly resisting, he wouldn’t be able to pull him anywhere he didn’t want to go.

“You’re soaked,” Pat observes, standing tense and still and letting Brian guide his hands.

“I’m on _fire_ ,” Brian corrects with a wink and an unexpected giggle and he plants one of Pat’s hands firmly on his waist while holding the other aloft.

He steps back slow, pulling Pat into stepping forward, and repeats until they’re doing a simple box step with minimal stumbling.

“Why didn’t you just lead?” Pat asks.

“‘Cause I’m a little tired from jumping around and I wanted to just fling my body around without throwing myself _at_ you,” Brian says, too candid.

Pat shrugs, accepting that, and stepping just a bit further into Brian’s space.

“Here, twirl me,” Brian says with a grin, raising their joined hands and spinning on his toes, scrunching his nose as he grinds mud further between them.

There’s still a part of Brian’s conscience that’s weakly warning him of the reasons for his reservations, that’s still trying to pull him back even as he’s getting closer to Pat with every spinning step they take.

He passes a hand over his glasses quickly to spell them with rain resistance and his fingers flutter nervously when he grabs back onto Pat’s shoulder.

This song’s coming to an end, too, an inevitable crescendo, and Brian says, “Quick, dip me!”

Pat does so cautiously, lowering Brian into a gentle dip that Brian pulls down further, insisting upon his own flexibility, and they hold until the song ends and the world around them is silent but for the rain.

Silent but for the rain, and the quiet squish of the mud that Brian’s bare feet slide slowly, and then very quickly across as the angle of his body reaches a tipping point and Pat’s arm can no longer bear his weight and he smacks down into the mud flat on his back, momentum pulling Pat right down with him.

Brian groans and laughs, accepting the pain and absurdity all at once. He tries to breathe deep, replace the air that had been knocked from his lungs, and more fully feels Pat’s weight on top of him.

“I’m sorry, I’m, ah—,” Pat’s trying to scramble up without hurting Brian or slipping on the mud himself.

“Paaat,” Brian sing-songs, “it’s fine!”

He wraps his arms around Pat to keep him their, elbows over his waist and hands stretching up to his shoulders and holding him in close until he stops trying to leave.

Pat laughs, then, loud and bright and full over the rain, his forehead dipped down and tucked into Brian’s shoulder. He can feel Pat’s smile on his skin, and he laughs as well. He’s going to need to wash his hair now, ugh…

He loosens his grip and Pat lifts himself slowly up and then stops short, staring down at Brian from above.

The resolve he’s held onto so tightly slips through his fingers like the whisper of so many threads.

Brian hasn’t even closed his lips around a plea when Pat’s are pressed against them to ensure that he never will.

It’s at once a surprise and an inevitable conclusion. How could he give in when he had gone so long already? How could he _not_?

Pat’s lips are cold, but they’re warming steadily. They tremble, like the rest of him, but he kisses back insistently once Brian pulls him in close again.

Brian threads a hand up through Pat’s hair and brings him in close, unable to find a pattern between small and soft and sweet and desperate and breathy and fevered and oh, is Pat breathing in the air he’s panting out?

Pat kisses with the fervor a drowned man gasping for air, returning to Brian desperately time and time again.

Cautious, hopeful, soft, Brian licks a suggestion into the seam of Pat’s lips and is met with a shaky, stuttered exhale, like maybe this part isn’t _as_ familiar, but before he can pull back, Pat lays his weight more fully down to cup one of his hands against Brian’s jaw, and Pat opens softly to him.

He shifts just enough to feel the boundaries of his body beyond just where he’s in physical contact with Pat. Unfortunately, some of those boundaries are _filthy_ with mud and he needs a shower in a very non-negotiable way sooner rather than later. But until then, he’s able to compartmentalize that fact and enjoy this until its natural conclusion.

Except—

Brian’s so gentle, slipping into Pat’s mouth just tentative enough to invite him to do the same, wanting to mellow the energy between them rather than escalate.

And Pat does acquiesce, still a bit tense like he’s afraid of making the wrong move here.

So it doesn’t help when Brian suddenly sputters a laugh into his mouth, pulling his head away fully to the side and just losing his composure in hysterical laughter. There might even be tears in his eyes, he can’t tell with all the rain.

Pat’s trying to reel back, naturally. He’s understandably spooked, not sure what he’s done wrong, but Brian holds him tight, even wraps his legs around him and wiggles him back and forth, nuzzles the side of his face into Pat’s, until he calms enough to gasp—

“Pat!” He taps his back to punctuate his laughter, “You taste like _pizza_!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please look at this [beautiful witch house fan art](https://nillacol.tumblr.com/post/187992772790/he-drinks-the-sight-in-greedily-and-tries-to-burn) that @nillacol made for this chapter!


	12. Spring III

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Endless thanks to everyone who's cheered me on in comments and messages and discord. I hadn't written anything in a long time and every bit of support has meant the world to me. Extra thanks to fishcola for beta reading and helping me through the second half of this story and always answering, "Is this too sad?" with, "No!"
> 
> Anyone who wants to play in this sandbox is welcome to!

There are often brief rainstorms in the vague hours that can’t quite be called either late night or early morning. Brian had no idea, wonders aloud if it’s always like this.

“I have no idea,” Pat says, quiet and happy and incredulous. The same way he’s said most things these last few days.

It’s not that Brian doesn’t want to sleep—he’d actually very much like to be able to retain some semblance of a normal sleep routine—but he can’t help it, not when he gets a new burst of adrenaline whenever Pat runs his fingers through Brian’s hair admiringly, or when he holds his breath and leans in slow and presses his lips to Pat’s brow and thinks _I can’t believe I’m allowed to have this_.

He’s still anxious, too. He’s used to the feeling of impending doom whenever things seem to be going a little _too_ well, although this time he has the luxury of knowing exactly when and what that doom will be.

 _Please, just let me be allowed to have this a little longer_. They’ll have to talk about it. Probably soon. But not yet, not right now.

Right now, he pulls himself in even closer to Pat, slides his hand up the back of his shirt and ghosts his fingertips over Pat’s cold skin. Pat leans in almost all the way, breath cold on Brian’s lips while he waits for an affirmative hum—still, he _still_ waits—before leaning the rest of the way forward.

They kiss without intent, languid and dreamlike, until they’re able to drift to sleep.

 

The downside of staying up so late is invariably waking up alone. Pat still has fieldwork to do, and Brian still has thesis work as well.

It feels like an injustice, having to go through the process of writing and recording his experiments and results and methods after having already worked so very long _doing_ them. He wishes it were as simple as just going up in front of the panel, waving his hands, and showing everyone what he has created without having to give them a whole origin story and instructions to follow.

Of course, as a student, those origins are endlessly useful. He’s just salty about still having to do a written assignment after all that hard work.

There are things he can do to procrastinate, of course. He runs off into town to see Jenna within a few days, to let her know his experiment had been successful and to thank her yet again for her help.

But she’d started asking questions along the lines of _what next_ and it had spooked him right back home.

He’d gone fishing a couple more times, forcing himself to get past any superstition he may feel about the bridge. It’s still peaceful, sitting out in nature and listening to the river, even now that he sees it through a more somber lens. He smiles big with relief when he reels in a fish large enough for a couple meals and thinks briefly about the river as a giver and taker of life. It’s just going to keep on being a river, no matter how he feels about it.

Naturally there are a few ways Brian could procrastinate that could also be classified as useful. He could write letters to his family and friends—needs to, in fact—letting them know that he’s succeeded after all and will be home as planned and to hold off on sending any more letters, please, because he’s not sure if he’ll get them on time.

And he needs to—

The thought sends him reeling, sends him marching right to the grain field for distraction, fish in tow.

— _pack_ —

No, nope, not now. Not today. _No._

“Patrick!” Brian calls, waving the fish up high. “You ever had one of these?”

Pat turns, his legs mostly hidden in the growing barley, and his face lights up while he half-runs over.

“I don’t... what kind is it? Maybe?”

Brian inspects the fish for a moment, then shrugs and laughs, “I have no idea! How do you not know? You know what everything is around here!”

“Yeah, well, I wasn’t one for fishing.” Pat says, scrunching up his nose as he grins at Brian and flexing his hands at his sides awkwardly for a moment before he puts them both on Brian’s shoulders and levels him with an intense look. “I want to try the fish.”

“I will not rest until you get to try the fish,” Brian says, clapping his empty hand on Pat’s shoulder and matching his serious tone of voice.

Pat smiles and drops his hands, then shifts on his feet a few times before saying, “I’ve still got some things to do out here, but you can grab something from the garden too, if you need.”

He knows Pat well enough, at least, to read his awkward fidgeting as not quite knowing how to reach out sometimes.

“I’ll try to get my work out of the way before you’re done,” Brian says, then steps forward into Pat’s space, holds the fish behind his back with one hand, and pulls Pat down by his collar just low enough to brush their lips together only for a moment—too light and brief to discern between physical contact and a spark of static.

And then he’s off, perhaps walking with a bit of a sway in his step, perhaps hoping that Pat’s watching him go.

It has to come up eventually, all of the hard conversations. Brian is just hoping he’ll have a little more time to enjoy these halcyon days.

He tells himself _soon_ , and _tomorrow_ , and _later_. Perhaps Pat is telling himself the same thing. 

Tonight he works his fingers through the air surrounding a slightly over-cooked, under-herbed fish and delights in Pat's reactions and can't help the ease with which another _tomorrow_ slips in. 

_After I get more work done._

And yet, Brian dawdles too much the next day, gets little work done on writing out his thesis and a lot of not-work done hanging out and playing ukulele and distracting Pat outside. It was just such a nice day, warm and blue-skied and fleeting—

 

The writing portion of thesis work is familiar but tedious. Many years of perceived busywork prepared Brian with the precise vocabulary to articulate the fine motions of his deft fingers and how to explain the feeling of things unseen. He murmurs aloud sometimes, reading over his writing, and doesn’t notice unless Pat asks him to explain what he means, in this context, when he says arabesque, perigee, complect.

Tonight he’s drifted mentally from his work, staring off into the middle distance meditatively while sitting back caged in Pat’s arms. There’s a blanket wrapped around Pat’s back that’s draped over Brian’s front so he’s not too cold, resting leaned back against him.

“When’s your train?”

They’ve both been still long enough that Brian startles when Pat speaks, feeling the susurrus of lips and soft words against his hair.

“Three weeks from yesterday,” Brian says, barely above a whisper. He’s glad this conversation isn’t happening face to face, and feels ashamed for that relief.

Brian’s body shrinks slightly, or Pat holds him infinitesimally tighter. “And you’re not coming back.”

It’s not a question. That should feel like a kindness, but there’s nothing kind about this situation. “I can visit sometime, when I’ve got the money.” He tries to sound optimistic, but it comes out just shy of broken.

 _I’m not ready to be here_ , he thinks. _There’s nothing for me here but you, and I need more than one person. I need a purpose, too. And my family and my friends. I still have a life out there_ , he doesn’t say. 

Pat doesn’t respond, just shifts so that he’s laying his face on Brian’s shoulder and sighs.

Brian sets his writing aside and leans his head back as far as he can against Pat to stare contemplatively at the ceiling. He wishes he could bottle this place and bring it with him, keep Pat somehow. He doesn't even _need_ the rest of it, the town, the witch house, just Pat. 

That must be why this has been blind spot, why there has been no thought of compromise until now. Pat is not bound to Hartdell, to this house, to anywhere or anything or anyone. So he could, if he wanted, if it was possible, hypothetically, oh just _maybe_ —

“What if you came with me?”

He feels more than hears the lurch of incredulous, hollow sob-laughter into the slope of his shoulder.

“No, I’m serious,” he says with an edge of desperation. “You could stay with me or—or not, you don’t have to, but you could stay _near_ me. I’m sure there’s some farms somewhere, if you wanted. Or you could learn something else! Or if you were with me you wouldn’t have to, not if you didn't want to. And you'd bring Charles, of course!Or you could just—just try it, and come back if you hate it!”

Zuko starts to approach him, barely starts to breach Brian's frenzied thoughts with his concern, when Brian shuts him out so fully that he turns tail and lopes over to the kitchen to lay down.

It's so perfect, why hasn't he thought of this before? They wasted so much time when they could have been preparing. It'll be a quick turnaround, but if he writes home first thing in the morning and if his train's not sold out there's still enough time to make it work without any hiccups! 

There are so many places he can show Pat, too! It's a good thing Brian knows all the best places for burgers, and—

He’s so wrapped up in the sudden brilliance of this plan that he nearly misses the way Pat’s body is tensing and trying to make itself smaller, compressing Brian within it.

“I can’t,” is all Pat says when he finally speaks again in a whisper.

Brian shuts his eyes tight until he sees stars and tries to play it off with a nonchalant, “That’s fine. I figured. Just thought I’d throw it out there.”

He’d hoped that when this conversation finally did have to happen it would be like ripping off a bandage. Unfortunately, the bandage took more skin with it, leaving a new open wound exposed to the sting of the air.

No more work is going to get done tonight. Brian nudges the papers off the mattress with his leg and wriggles enough to signal Pat to let him loose. He lays down on his side and taps the space beside him until Pat fills it, his long body still tensed tight. Brian takes the time to cover them both adequately with several blankets before he turns the light off with a decisive wave of his hand.

They hold each other close, but do no more than that. The knowledge of their deadline weighs too heavily in the air to do much more than cling hard to another body like an anchor in time.

Brian’s grip is weakening as he’s drifting off when Pat’s hitched breath brings him back into the moment. 

“Maybe in another life,” Pat says before he cuts himself off abruptly with a sharp inhale.

And Brian doesn’t think his heart can weather the sea change of that topic, so he pushes himself forward until their lips meet. He hopes it comes across as equal parts silencing and reassuring.

_I’m still here now. We’re still here now._

 

They wind up at Simone’s for dinner the next night. It’s been longer than usual since they’ve come by, but if she has any thoughts on that she’s either keeping them to herself or too distracted by the dinner rush to bother.

It’s another thing they haven’t talked about, though, and Brian felt more-than-a-prickle of his conscience when he started to drift further from Pat’s side as they approached Simone’s and then unlaced their fingers under the guise of stretching his arms. And then, well, they were at the door.

The heavy mood of the night before has mostly lifted with their initial deliberate return to normalcy having given way to their now-usual comfortable rapport, and Pat seems downright jolly when he orders half the limited menu. 

“You trying to fatten Brian up and sell him at the market?” Simone asks, head cocked to the side.

“I’ll show you when it’s out,” he says, unperturbed and nearly bouncing in his seat in excitement.

Simone dutifully but skeptically arrays pizza, fries, breaded chicken cutlets, and one side salad in front of Pat, then stands back and stares expectantly.

Brian starts with the pizza since it’s what he’s most familiar with now, and Pat directs him to Simone with a jerk of his chin once he’s ready. “Can you lean in real quick?” Brian asks her, then gives his customary apology as he pushes the threads past her lips.

“Oh shit!” Simone yelps before giving way to laughter. Jenna’s poking her head out the order window to watch the reaction and is beaming with pride for her part in making this possible. “How’d you learn that?”

“It’s all thesis magic, baby,” he sing-songs, basking in the recognition like it’s a beam of sunlight. He gathers up more pizza flavors for Patrick and wonders if it’ll ever get old, seeing his reaction full of unbridled joy and awe.

“Wait, wait, Pat?!” Simone slams one hand down on the bar and leans in close to him. “You can taste it too? This works for you?”

He nods enthusiastically, grinning wide. Brian catches himself admiring that smile a little too openly and looks away to focus heavily on picking a stray pepperoni off the pizza.

Perhaps he was too slow, or perhaps Simone’s just too intuitive, but he swears he can feel the weight of her eyes on him for a moment after that. She doesn’t reveal what she determines in her investigation, though, and just goes back to telling Pat how excited she is for him.

“You need me to take over on the floor?” Jenna prompts, having reappeared in the window for a moment.

“Oh, shit, sorry,” Simone says and slips away immediately to return to work.

Jenna gives Brian a wink, then withdraws from view once more. 

There’s enough work to be done for other customers that they’re afforded an unusual amount of relative privacy. It helps to feel less focused-on while Brian’s working on more unfamiliar foods. Pat’s patient, though, and so excited with each new taste that it makes all of the fumbling and false starts worth it.

Except for the salad. He’d tried valiantly to convince Pat that it was a bad experience without texture, but he insisted on experiencing it for himself. It was good for a laugh, at least, the exaggerated grimace on Pat’s face while he conceded and begged for something, anything, to wash it down.

“We need to celebrate,” Simone announces without preface when she returns. “Are you free next week? Wanna go to Samsbrook?”

“Yeah, of course,” Brian says, “I’m fine to drive whenever.”

She laughs at him, “Nooo! You don’t have to drive, this is to celebrate you! Plus, there’s a lot of stuff there Pat’s probably never tried before. We’ll go on a culinary tour.”

Pat chimes in to work out logistics with timing and fieldwork, but he’s sitting up straighter and smiling through all of it.

When they’ve left and laced their hands together again, Brian feels that his anxiety for the near future has been displaced, at least temporarily, by the happiness he feels right now.

 

There’s an ebb and flow to their relationship now and any sense of equilibrium is so tenuous that as soon as Brian feels like he’s gone too far in one direction he pitches hard the other way.

He supposes that’s a part of the problem—that he’s the one making these calls. He escalates, slipping his clever hands under Pat’s shirt when he loses the patience to work the buttons loose, and Pat follows all greedy tongue and soft, keening noises that set Brian’s blood on fire.

Brian both pulls away and presses his skin more directly into the sobering cold of Pat’s body, and Pat immediately loses all intensity and withdraws from Brian entirely.

It’s not difficult for Brian to sort out his feelings on the matter. Leaving is going to hurt—badly. No matter what he does, he’s going to be left with a bruise on his heart that he’ll press into whenever he remembers his time here. If that bruise is larger, or deeper, then the bittersweet sense memory will stay fresh that much longer. But he knows he can withstand it and, with time, maybe enjoy it.

He can’t make that choice for Pat, though. Can’t willfully hurt someone he cares about, especially knowing that—if he expands the metaphor—Pat’s already got so many other bruising memories that he carries with him still. There’s too many spots that ache just getting through the day. 

It’s definitely going to need to be another conversation. Probably one that should happen sooner rather than later. Maybe even before it happens again. Brian can definitely be responsible and facilitate that.

And yet, the cycle continues.

Brian’s got his hand that was only a moment ago brushing softly through Pat’s smooth hair now grasping for dear life up against the scalp while he’s panting hot breaths against Pat’s ear, because Pat is—just— _scraping_ his teeth experimentally down the side of Brian’s neck and responding with varying pressure to the slightest gasp or whine like he’s tuning an instrument.

But Brian had started this, too—had kissed Pat’s cheekbone and temple softly as he welcomed him back home for the night, had walked them backwards until he hit a wall, had nipped at the shell of Pat’s ear before moving to see how responsive his earlobes were and... Plenty, apparently.

Pat bites in earnest—with as much pressure as he can—on a spot that hits him like a struck tuning fork and makes Brian moan suddenly in resonance. 

It sobers him instantly, snaps him out of his reverie even as everything inside of him claws for more. Brian loosens his grip, lets his hands move from where they’re fisted in his hair and shirt to set them squarely on Pat’s shoulders and hangs his head loose to rest against them as well while he takes a few deep breaths. Pat’s already standing up straight, hands at his sides. He’d probably have stepped back further if it wasn’t for Brian’s hands on his shoulders tethering him there.

“I’m sorry,” Pat says quietly, and when Brian whips his head up he’s shocked by the guilty expression on Pat’s face.

“I don’t... why?” Brian asks

Pat looks away, shimmies his shoulders just enough for Brian to let him go, then walks over to the bed and sits down. He purses his lips for a moment in thought, then pulls a white sheet over his head.

Brian smiles fondly and smooths his fingers through his hair while he approaches slowly. “So, uh, can I not see you right now? Is that what we’re doing?”

The sheet rustles vaguely from side to side and Pat says, “No, I just—I _know_ it’s stupid but it’s easier to talk like this. If I have this... divide. Sorry.”

“That’s fine,” Brian says, ignores the slight sting of Pat needing any division. It’s nothing personal. He sits down him on the mattress and faces hopefully the same direction.

It’s quiet for a while longer before Pat says, “I don’t want you to feel like you _have to_ do anything.”

Brian’s barked out an incredulous laugh and yelped, “What?!” before he has the time to think better of it.

Even through the sheet he can hear the pouty, indignant expression Pat must have. “Look, I know I was not _polite_ about you staying here in the first place and I just want to make sure you don’t feel like you owe anything to me, somehow. Like, if that’s why you did all of your magic to help me... you don’t have to do that, either. You never had to. But you don’t have to do that _or anything else_ —“

“Patrick,” Brian cuts him off, voice fraying a little, “can I see you? Please?”

The sheet condenses itself into a smaller mass and Brian sighs. He turns his whole body in toward Pat and reaches out a hand, feeling around for a moment before he’s able to cup it against Pat’s cheek through the sheet.

“That’s not why I did anything. That’s not why I helped Charles last summer, it’s not why I changed my thesis, it’s certainly not why I can’t keep my hands off you.” Pat scoffs and Brian taps his face lightly. “Stop that. You know that’s not why, right? Please?” He lets himself telegraph his insecurity by fidgeting a bit.

After a long pause, Pat relents with a quiet, “I guess,” that’s more felt than heard. “Sorry. I know. I just—it’s hard to—“

It would be satisfying to hear him say it, to admit to his own insecurities and recognize that they’re irrational, but he’s trying so hard with just this much that Brian tosses him a lifeline. “If I’ve gotta go out to the field and distract you even more and fail my thesis because I can’t get the written part down because _I can’t not be touching you_ , if that’s what it takes to convince you, just let me know.” He’s joking, of course, but not as much as he should be. And Pat laughs just a little, too, so maybe he can rip this bandage off as well. Brian lowers his hand, keeps it to himself, and says in one breath, “But I’m not here much longer, so I don’t want to be... careless.”

Pat sighs, and the sheet moves up and down like he’s nodding while he exhales a quiet, unsurprised, “Yeah.” He stays still after that, leaving Brian alone with his thoughts.

His eyes are closed, actually, when he hears the rustle of Pat lifting the sheet up toward him and inviting him into the strange bright-dim dimension he’s created.

It takes some adjusting, covering the both of them fully with the sheet so that no unfiltered light breaks in, but they’re seated comfortably close in front of one another within the next minute.

There’s an odd juxtaposition with the way Pat’s avoiding eye contact and the way he’s feeling Brian’s hands so thoroughly as soon as they’re settled. He keeps pressing their hands together and then moving his long, precise fingers around over Brian’s as if he’s trying to map them permanently in his mind. He traces the lines of Brian’s palms and the smooth flats of his nails and the shallow channels between the bones on the backs of his hands.

When Pat speaks again, his voice is quiet and steady. “I never saw anyone do magic before you. It’s amazing, watching all the things you can do with your hands. You can feel all of these things I can’t. You can move things without touching them and make light and wind and you can take an object and separate it into all of these pieces I can’t even see.” 

It’s clear that Pat’s not done speaking, that he’s just gathering his thoughts, and in this interlude he lifts Brian’s hand to his lips. Brian’s fingers drape loosely around his and Pat brushes his lips past them tenderly and closes his eyes. 

Pat takes a breath before concluding softly, secretly, “I feel like if you wanted to, you could take me apart.”

Brian doesn’t move, or tense, or hold his breath. He keeps his hand soft and pliant, lets Pat maintain his focus on it. He can still feel the shape of Pat’s words against his fingers. 

There are several things he needs to say, but the first step in this conversation is making absolutely sure he’s on the right side of this double entendre. He prompts a clarification with a carefully repeated, “If I wanted to...”

Pat lowers Brian’s hand from his face, holds it infinitesimally tighter, and he meets Brian’s eyes, open and honest and asking. “You could.”

 

Judging by the clear skies outside the window and the incrementally easier time Brian has extracting himself from his blankets in the late morning, it just might be a warm day after all. Simone had wondered aloud if it was going to rain on their trip to Samsbrook this time around but that seems unlikely now.

Zuko and Charles are lounging in a sunbeam when Brian realizes Pat must have fed them both when he woke up early. No wonder he’d been allowed to sleep in so much later than usual. He takes a moment to pet them, finding them sun-warm to the touch, and is rewarded with a sigh from Charles and a grumble from Zuko.

His written thesis work sits neglected on the table. It’s more than halfway done. There’s plenty of time. It’s just a bit of an anticlimactic chore at this point, no harm in taking a few days away from it.

There’s enough rolled oats left that he’s trying to have oatmeal for as many meals as he can tolerate without becoming malnourished before leaving. This morning’s portion is smaller than usual, due to both oatmeal-fatigue and anticipation of better foods later today. He’s got most of one apple to add to it once he cuts around the bruised spots, so Pat can’t lecture him too harshly.

Pat’s in the garden now, so Brian opens the window facing out that way and bends down to eat his oatmeal from the windowsill with the open air on his face. It’s already comfortably warm out.

It takes a while for Pat to notice him, and when he does he calls over, “Stop objectifying me and get ready!”

Brian laughs hard, hanging his head down and letting his bare shoulders shake with it. “I can’t get ready until you objectify _me_ , Pat Gill.”

Pat smirks, glances over his shoulder at the garden, then hurries over to the window. He leans up against the wall on his toes, reaching up to guide Brian down for a kiss that they both have to stretch into—soft, brief, slightly uncomfortable, but Brian’s still got a goofy smile on his face when Pat pulls back and looks him tenderly in the eye and says, “Get ready,” then turns on his heel with the briefest flash of a grin.

With a parting performative whine out the window, Brian sulks off into the witch house for a quick shower.

He manages to finish before the hot water runs out—punches the air in victory, even—and reminds himself to buy more cinnamon later today. 

Impatiently, he spells steam off the mirror and combs his fingers quick through his hair, wincing when he tugs at a tender spot on his scalp.

“I’m sorry,” Pat says, looking and sounding guilty where he’s making himself small against the doorway.

Brian startles slightly, not knowing he was there, then turns and reaches out to tug Pat over behind him so that he can see him in the mirror. Pat drapes his arms around Brian closely, taking in his extra warmth.

“You’re good,” Brian says to him in the mirror. “I asked you to.” 

Pat closes his eyes and hums, unconvinced, pressing an apologetic kiss into the back of Brian’s head.

“ _Are_ you good?”

He nods vigorously in response, nose mussing up Brian’s damp hair, and squeezes him tighter. “Just miss you.”

 _I’m still here_ , he almost says, but the words die in his throat as the rest of the conversation plays out instantaneously in his mind. Suddenly, he can’t look at their reflections anymore, and he’s grateful that Pat loosens his grip enough that he can turn around and hug him back until the unnatural heat radiating off his skin has cooled completely and his racing thoughts, his pounding heart, have similarly settled.

They get ready quietly after that, orbiting each other in their tasks until they hear Simone’s truck pull up, followed by several staccato beeps of its horn while Brian’s just finished lacing one of his shoes.

He springs up and out the door right away, mindful of the laces trailing off his other shoe as he runs and dives theatrically into the truck. Pat, as always, shuts the door responsibly and walks over at a normal pace.

“You could’ve finished tying your shoes,” he says with a smirk when he shuts the car door behind himself, greeting Simone with an upward jerk of his head.

“No he can’t,” Simone says before Brian can answer for himself, contorted as he is trying to finish tying said shoe while buckled into the center seat of the truck. “He knows what his priorities should be.”

“Spending the rest of the money I’m supposed to live off for two weeks is a good priority, right?” 

“The best,” Simone says and then she slides her sunglasses on and starts them on their way.

It’s been months since the last time they made this trip, but Brian’s still surprised by how much more scenic it seems to be. There are wildflowers all along the roadside and the sun is so bright and warm. He’s got full control of the radio and spends his time chasing the best driving music from station to station as Simone takes them down the highway. 

It’s a more comfortable drive, generally, this time. The borders of personal space on either side of him have become more permeable.

After Simone parks, he even makes a joke out of stretching his arms out in an exaggerated way and casually draping them over Pat and Simone’s shoulders, grinning innocently when they both laugh and shove off of him, his body jostled back and forth.

“I haven’t had lunch yet,” Simone says as soon as they’re on the main drag. “Does a cafe sound good and we’ll have a bigger dinner?”

Pat nods and shrugs but his eyes light up and betray his true excitement.

“Even though I had some delicious oatmeal, which I could eat every day for the rest of my life,” Brian relents, “I’m willing to accompany you.”

Simone marches ahead, leading the way with determination. Brian trails behind, unfamiliar with the area, and Pat falls in step beside him with a hip-check and a narrow-eyed grin to let him know his oatmeal-praising did not go unnoticed.

And it’s so easy, so natural to let their silent soft jostling against each other resolve itself in their hands held tight. 

In all her confident guidance, Simone suddenly turns and asks, “Shit, wait, did we pass it?” 

Brian freezes a little, tenses like he got caught with his hand in the cookie jar, but he holds on tight and keeps a straight face. She'd just turned to check the shops on the corner they’d just passed, didn’t let her gaze linger on either of them following her.

He looks askance at Pat and sees him looking around absentmindedly with a private smile on his face.

 _Well_ , he decides, _it’s not like her opinion will change anything either way._ He squeezes Pat’s hand lightly, and Pat turns and lets him in on his smile as well.

They drift apart naturally to get in through the door of the cafe and spend too long eyeing the options in the display case. Simone’s already ordered and sat down at a table before Brian steps back enough to realize she’s no longer beside them. 

Pat buys a croissant for Brian—though he teases about getting him an oatmeal cookie—on the agreement that he can taste it along with the three other pastries he’s got himself. 

It takes some time with each new thing, figuring out where and how to find the spider silk threads of flavor. It’s not too difficult with the croissant given that there aren't many components, but there’s not much to be done to recover the textural nuances. Nevertheless, Pat is delighted with each new sample Brian pulls up for him. 

Simone is similarly enthused and starts wheedling Pat for tastes of his food as well, turning to barely concealed attempts at sleight-of-hand when she’s unable to strike a deal with him. Ultimately, everyone gets a taste of everything, even if some portions are given under duress.

Pat goes back up to the display case to make sure there’s nothing else he wants to save for later, leaving Brian and Simone suddenly, terrifyingly alone.

Before Brian can breathe a word to try heading off whatever disappointment he’s about to be on the receiving end of, Simone cuts him off with a sharp—

“If you apologize, you’re walking home.”

He swallows, all the more intimidated by her serious expression for her looking at Pat rather than himself, and nods. At that, she finally turns to him and gives him a small smile. 

“You could’ve asked to borrow my truck, you know. I don’t want to crash your hot date,” she punctuates with an exaggerated wink.

“It’s not like that,” Brian says, smiling and ducking his head slightly. “I wanted to see you again outside of work, too. I’m not going to make it a third wheel situation, promise.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t let you,” Simone says with a vaguely menacing tone. She looks over toward Patrick again and apparently makes eye contact as she wordlessly gets up and heads back over to him, Brian following in her wake. And that's that.

They follow Brian without hesitation into the magic supply shop, much less timid in their gawking this time around while he peruses the shelves for affordable souvenirs for his family and Jonah.

There are cauldrons handcrafted locally that he definitely cannot afford, though perhaps he could get his mom a copper ladle. The similarly priced artisan options of rune stones and talismans drive him to the back of the store to check along the bookshelves.

This area isn’t known for any magical specialties, as is evident by its lack of section showcasing spell books by local authors. It’s still always interesting to browse though, to see what spells have been compiled and printed.

He pulls a copy of _Where the Magic Happens: Spells and Potions for the Bedroom (6th Edition)_ and hardly has a moment to consider it before he hears a strangled sound behind him and turns around just in time to see Pat retreating quickly across the shop. He holds his laughter in just barely and checks the price on the back of the book before sobering and sliding it immediately and delicately back on the shelf.

The end result of shopping here is about what he expected: jars of local ingredients are a cliche gift, but not for no reason. He talks through his options with the shopkeeper at the front, who kindly gives him reference cards with suggested uses to go with his final selections. Laura and Jonah get dried flowers to use in performative spells, his mom gets a local herb medley that’s an allegedly good all-purpose additive for potions with preserving properties, and Brian gets himself another jar of cinnamon sticks. 

Simone pulls them into the same bookstore as the last time again, though Brian only glances around perfunctorily. There’s nothing he wants to read badly enough at this point that he can’t wait to check it out at the library back home. 

_Back home_.

But that will always be home to some degree, right? No matter where he settles down ultimately, can’t there be more than one _home_ in his heart? 

Just thinking those words isn’t a betrayal of the time he’s spent here, the time here was _home_.

 _Was_ home.

He counts his breaths in and out and focuses on jumping a spark along his fingertips until he feels less like he’s sinking into a whirlpool of his thoughts.

“Hey,” Pat says, appearing alongside him suddenly. “You ‘kay?”

Brian smiles up at him immediately, automatically, and leans his shoulder into him. “Yeah,” he says, with all the soft nuance of _not entirely, but I will be_ and _I want to be, please pretend I am until I get there._

He can feel Pat hum thoughtfully more than he can hear it, and he doesn’t realize how much he’s settled leaned up against Pat’s side until all of a sudden Pat’s a step ahead of him, pulling him along by the hand while he’s all off-kilter.

Pat pulls him into the romance section, conspicuously close to Simone. She spares him a passing glance and rolls her eyes, anticipating what’s coming next.

“ _The Royal Consort’s Rapture,_ ” Pat deadpans, tugging the book out to examine its cover like a fine art piece. A woman in a loose, flowing gown with many ostentatious necklaces is draped, swooning, against the shoulder of a conspicuously shirtless man, somehow posed in an anatomically questionable way that still leaves his muscled chest in clear view.

It’s over-the-top enough to seem a bit like a parody of itself, and Brian cracks a smile before hunting for a selection of his own.

“ _Shoreline Seduction_ ,” Brian sing-songs, “sounds salacious!”

“As much as—wow— _The Rake’s Caress_.” The way Pat scrabbles to get that one back on the shelf has Brian playfully shoving him aside to see how suggestive the cover must be to fluster him so. 

Brian isn’t an overly muscular man, so there’s not much bodily resemblance there, and no one on these kinds of books ever wears glasses, but he’s willing to acknowledge the otherwise uncanny facial resemblance. He points to the man on the cover and raises his eyebrows at Pat, gives him a hinting, “Eh?” while Pat groans and buries his face in his hands. Simone spares them a glance and barks one loud laugh.

“Patrick have you ever considered a career as a _Thief of Purity_ ,” Brian asks, offering a change of topic that is only minimally less likely to embarrass him.

“No, I’m too busy being _Wanton and Willing_ —Okay, I can’t. I’m done.” He’s covering his eyes again, but his smile’s still visible.

“Have you told Brian about how you used to read these?” Simone says with a devious expression. She knows he has not, would not, and shrieks when Pat throws himself against her back to wrap his hand over her mouth even though she’s braced and laughing hard enough to seem like she expected it.

They get enough disapproving looks to grimace and cower and gesture performative apologies before hurrying back out onto the street.

There’s a brief ghost of a thought, that Brian is supposed to be worrying about something, isn’t he?, but it passes in a bought of contagious laughter among the three of them.

“Oh,” Brian says suddenly, “I wanted to look at some clothes.”

They file into the next store, Simone splitting off immediately, and suddenly Brian feels a bit shy. This was his main goal in coming here, truly, but he hasn’t communicated that to anyone. To Pat. 

It makes him feel unusually vulnerable in a way he hasn’t examined closely. It’s too tangential to all of the other thoughts that make the panic come on like distant storm clouds. They’re rolling in, but he doesn’t have to _watch_ them.

Pat follows him quietly, looking around just enough to betray his relative disinterest while Brian browses without really seeing anything.

“Hey, Pat,” Brian asks, turning to him suddenly. “Can you... Sorry, this is weird. Can you pick out a shirt that you’d wear?”

Confused and visibly trying to work through it, Pat looks around briefly before saying, “I don’t really need any, they don’t keep me any warmer and I’ve got plenty of my ghost clothes. But thank you, that’s—“

“No. It’s for me.” Brian keeps eye contact even as he feels his face flush, embarrassed to have to explain a request that feels childish to be making.

“Oh.” Pat looks around again, recalculated. “Pick a shirt I want you to wear?”

He groans and drops his forehead against Pat’s chest, smacks the side of his arm without force.

“I’m trying! Okay. Pick a shirt I want to wear, but then you wear it like it’s my shirt. Is that it?”

“How is this such a foreign concept,” Brian whines, then regrets it immediately when he feels Pat tense against him. He tenses in sympathy and opens his mouth to apologize when Pat steps away, ruffles Brian’s hair with one hand and pushes his own back with the other.

“I’m learning,” he says, indignant and understanding. An excuse and a request for patience.

Patience. _Time_. Brian’s heart aches, but rather than dwell he reaches out and takes Pat’s hand.

Unsurprisingly, Pat settles on a soft red and black flannel shirt. He tries it on in front of the mirror and laughs at the incongruity of physical clothing against the rest of his ghostly reflection.

Brian groans and grumbles, “I should’ve known. I should’ve just come in here and picked that one out myself,” and Pat doesn’t even have the decency to hide his laugh or keep his tongue from poking out when he smiles after.

When they make it up to the register, Pat stops Brian from getting his wallet out with a gentle press of his hand and stems his protests with a prim, “It’s _my_ shirt.”

“Were you always this much of a bastard,” Brian wonders with no small amount of awe. 

They make an early detour to Griffin’s Landing while the sun is just beginning to set and find it conveniently unoccupied. Brian lays belly-down over the seat of a swing and walks himself back and forth on it, watching Pat and Simone see-saw with varying degrees of sideways-upside down perspective.

They’re laughing about something he can’t quite hear because his ears are buzzing a little bit, because his blood’s swishing back and forth around his head, but he’s happy just watching the two of them being friends. Maybe this is how they always were, before. Maybe this is how they’ll be from now on.

He surrenders to the lightheaded swaying and starts walking himself in slow circles and feeling his body raised up and up and up little by little until he’s on his tiptoes and kicks his knees up and spins, and stops and pauses, and spins back, and stops and pauses, and continues to rock back and forth until he’s obtained equilibrium and is so distracted by how he’s too old to ever, ever do that on purpose again to let any other thoughts ruin today.

“You gonna barf?” Simone asks, suddenly in front of him.

“No,” Brian says miserably, and he slides unceremoniously off the swing to sit on his bare legs in the dirt.

“You wanna head to dinner, then?" she asks, and cackles at his answering groan. 

Pat’s hardly more sympathetic, but he helps Brian up as much as he’s able to and walks with him to sit over on a nice, stable bench. 

“I don’t need long,” Brian clarifies quickly, “just didn’t think I’d get dizzy that easily.”

“You’re fine,” Pat says at the same time as Simone says, “Late nights?” with a waggle of her eyebrows.

Pat’s already elbowing her when Brian says, “Yeah, kinda. Just have to get myself to finish the written portion of my thesis, but I keep staring at it and zoning out.”

“You can come by the bar if you want,” she offers, then laughs at whatever face Pat makes in response and adds, “No, really! It’s quiet enough during the day and you won’t have _this guy_ distracting you with his _Wanton and Willing_ ways.”

“ _Simone_ ,” Pat groans, leaning over with his elbows on his knees and shaking his face in his hands. This, of course, only makes her laugh harder.

“Thanks,” Brian says, ignoring their banter, “I might take you up on that, actually. Change where I’m working so I can focus better.”

“Bring your kitty,” she adds enthusiastically.

“Ah, the true motive,” he says and Pat uncurls from his private shame prison and laughs with them.

Simone insists on a relatively nice restaurant for dinner, though nothing so fancy as to make them feel inappropriately dressed. Brian looks at the menu like he’s staring down the barrel of a gun.

He must be very visibly concerned because Pat reaches out from his side of the table, scoots his chair slightly closer to Brian's side and jostles his shoulder and says quietly, “We’re not letting you pay for this.”

“Yeah,” Simone chimes in from across, “this is our treat.”

“Thank you,” Brian says, too sobered by the reality of only being able to afford some of the appetizers to protest their kindness out of any sort of pride. 

Pat is unusually animated, asking both of them at length about various menu items and their recommendations and what unfamiliar ingredients taste similar to.

“It's too bad you can't repay us by stealing tastes of everyone else's food," Simone muses, glancing around conspicuously at the surrounding diners.

Brian's laugh starts as a sputter, then grows to something more all-consuming as he tries to quietly hold himself together, gasping out, "Simone! That's brilliant!"

"You're gonna go to jail for food crimes," Pat says, laughing too.

"What, just because someone doesn't like you waving your hands over their plate?" Simone asks, laughing along.

"Just... just casually walking by not touching your food!" Brian says, dissolving into giggles again. 

"Shut up, it's a good idea!" Simone says between bouts of raucous laughter.

"It really is," Pat says, his consoling hand on her shoulder undercut by his inability to maintain a straight face. 

It's decidedly the fanciest meal Brian's had all year. Everything else has fallen somewhere on the spectrum between his most tired, desperate survival cooking and Jenna's off-the-clock casual experimentations. Conversation flows easily while he keeps his hands moving continuously, keeping Pat looped in on the dining experience until he stills Brian's wrist with just a gentle press of his fingertips while he's telling Simone about how the barley is coming along.

Everything feels so at ease tonight, and Brian sits back with a full belly and watches the friends he's made for as long as he's able to before they rope him back into conversation with them.

They head back earlier this time around, skipping a trip to the bar so that Simone's able to drop them off first before driving herself home. She yells, "Make good choices!" into the night before she recedes into the darkness and takes all sound but the wind in the trees with her.

Brian wraps the souvenir jars carefully in sweaters and places them in his trunk and he almost loses himself, pressing into the ache of emotional referred pain this causes, when Pat interrupts him with, "Hey, check it out."

And he's wearing the shirt he bought today, and it's just _so_ identical to how he looks almost every other day—like someone took the Pat page in a coloring book and decided to spice things up a bit—that Brian can't help but smile and tease a laugh out of Pat in response. 

 

He really _had_ meant to come to Simone's to finish his written work. Truly, honestly, completely. But then Brian had stopped by the municipal building and there had been letters from Laura and Jonah, and he'd got one from his mom the other day, and his stationery was in his bag already _anyway_...

Which is to say, in spite of some bold claims, Brian David Gilbert will not actually be finishing his thesis today. There's still a week and a half to go, it's fine. More, really, since he's home for a few days before going back to his academy. He could always finish it on the train there. Not that he's considered that as an option.

These letters are a welcome distraction. The gist of Jonah's letter is similar to the one Brian will send in response: thesis work is wrapping up, see you in a few weeks, looking forward to meeting up and not planning on writing any more letters before then. Laura's and his mom's letters are a bit more conversational, but the purpose of his response is the same. Time to let everyone know not to write him at this address anymore.

Unexpectedly, secretly, the letters all give him a small _thrill_. He's going _home_!

Deep down he knows they'd be difficult return letters to write at home. At the witch house. Writing them at Simone's is at least a little more removed from all of the complicated feelings he's trying not to dredge up before he has to.

He asks Laura to please remove her overflow storage from his room before he gets back, tells Jonah he's got him a really wonderful souvenir and hopes it won't outshine whatever Jonah must have got him in return, and asks his mom to give Moose a big hug for him and to make sure that Laura removes her things from his room. He even uses the nice stationery Tara gave to him.

There's a stretch of time after the letters are written and before another customer arrives when it's just Brian and Jenna and Simone and a record player. Everyone's loose-limbed and giggling and a bit hoarse from singing by the time the bell on the front door chimes again and they snap to standing straight and being professional again. Brian realizes quickly that he hasn't needed to be professional in quite a while and doesn't need to begin again now and sees himself out with a quick wave and a promise to stop by again soon. 

After dropping his letters in the post box on his way back out of town, Brian figures he might as well take the day off. He'd already given up the idea of working on his thesis today, can't come back from that!

He picks wildflowers here and there on the way home, plucking petals from the first one to a satisfactory end and then keeping the rest gathered in hand. 

Pat is out in the garden by the time he's made his way back, and he tucks a yellow flower in Pat's hair before greeting him.

"I think I'm gonna head to Simone's," Pat says, "wanna come with?"

"I was just there," Brian says, by way of saying _not really, not this time_.

But Pat's fine with it, just nods and holds him up for a moment and puts a matching flower in Brian's hair as well.

There aren't a lot of flowers along the paths through the woods. The trees here are old and tall and the sunlight's sparse even during the brightest parts of the day. It's past that time now, but he'll definitely make it home before twilight.

The field's growing well, and Brian stops a while to send small breezes through the stalks and watch them sway in a ripple.

It's been a long time since he's gone to the bridge without a fishing pole, but for lack of any other destination he makes his way there. It's a good place to turn around, at least.

And yet, once he makes it there, he stops and rests on its steps and ponders all the flowers still in hand for a moment before pressing the worn down nub of a thumbnail into the long stem of something that looks like a daisy but probably isn't one. He threads the flowers into other stems, making an uneven, inexpert chain of them.

He can't charm things terribly well. There's certainly nothing he can do that would have any lasting effect on this place. There's nothing that needs affecting here, anyway. It's just a bridge.

Just because someone dies by a bridge, it doesn't make the bridge an evil place. 

Just because he knew he would be leaving, it doesn't make Brian a bad person.

So maybe it's all projection, maybe he really wants to absolve himself of all the guilt he feels when he thinks about how happy he is with Pat and then immediately about how fleeting it is. And how maybe he shouldn't have said anything. But he did. 

So this doesn't make amends for that, it changes neither the immediate nor the distant past, but Brian winds the flower chain reverently around the rail of the bridge nonetheless. 

He moves his fingers inexpertly through several false starts and furrows his brow as he recalls the steps for basic ideas. Strength, happiness, warmth. Safety.

It's selfish and useless and it changes _nothing_ and it's all Brian has right now.

He makes it home before twilight after all.

 

Brian's not _worried_ when Pat doesn't make it back home soon after nightfall. He's fine eating dinner alone. It's probably better this way, he can have more oatmeal with Pat giving him any trouble for it.

It's not completely out of character, he stays late talking with Simone sometimes. But usually Brian's there for those times. 

He lays right on the floor, the top of his head up against the record player, and resolutely does _not_ look at the clock. 

_Pat will be home when he's home_.

There's a selfish part of Brian— _surely everyone has this part? surely this isn't a unique moral deficit of his?_ —that feels a little put out. He has so little time left here, and it's easier to hurt because Pat is choosing not to spend it with him than it is to hurt in a way that can't be changed.

But, oh, it hurts. It hurts in all the ways he knew it would and he did all of this anyway and he'd do it again and he's going to keep doing it and seeing how much worse he can make it hurt. He's earned this hurt.

He lays an arm over his eyes and grits his teeth and counts his breaths and feels grateful when Zuko flops gracelessly down against his side.

It's not until the door bursts open that Brian realizes he'd dozed off at some point—that he was _capable_ of dozing off on a wood floor—and he bolts upright in a room silent but for Pat hunched over heaving breaths in the doorframe.

"What's—" Brian says, and he's cut off by Pat practically diving forward and landing on his knees in front of him, grabbing Brian's shoulders tightly and staring at him intently.

"I...," Pat starts, and when Brian remains silent, he laughs weakly and says, "I don't even—Running doesn't make me tired. That's not why—" he removes one of his hands, brushes his hair back, grabs Brian's shoulder again. "Did you mean it?"

Brian tries his hardest to remember everything he has ever said. "What time," he asks, concerned and cautious and absolutely clueless.

Pat bites his lip and shuts his eyes tight, visibly wresting the words from where he keeps the precious, fragile parts of himself. "When you... Could I really? Come with you?"

He's still not looking at Brian, still bracing himself for the physical impact of a letdown.

It could be that his hands are shaking, but it feels like Pat even flinches when Brian cups both his cheeks and moves him gently until Pat's looking him in the eye again.

Everything in the space of a single breath feels so fragile, seeing the same vulnerable hopefulness mirrored in Pat's face. He exhales, "Really?"

"I think so. I didn't—Yeah, yes. If you... if you really meant it."

" _Patrick_ ," Brian says, so fondly, so disbelieving, and he peppers Pat's face with quick and unaimed kisses—he kisses his _glasses_ —until they're both laughing, a little bit at Brian's absurdity and a lot bit at the weight of this monumental change of course.

"I swear, I promise, you don't have to stay," Brian says, ricocheting between laughing, quick, artless kisses and earnest, purposeful, targeted ones. 

This isn't a dream, right? He pinches his thigh and squeaks against Pat's forehead and redoubles his effort to pour his overflowing joy into Pat.

"You can come right back if you don't like it. You can live somewhere else. But oh, Pat, you could stay forever."

He breathes in sharp, too prolonged to be a true gasp, and fists the back of Brian's shirt tight in both hands. "I—I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know what I'm gonna do!" He laughs, pulls Brian in even closer, phases his hands into him just a bit and shudders from the sensation. "But I want to. I didn't think I could. I don't know why! Simone talked some—"

"Please don't talk about Simone right now—"

"—sense into me, sorry, talked me through it for hours. I ran all the way home. Brian, please, I really, really want to go. Please—"

"—yes! Of course, yes, I already said yes, and you did too and you can't take it back! But you can! But I won't—"

"—and Charlie's okay—"

"—of course Charlie's okay! Moose gets along great with cats, and—" Brian springs away suddenly and makes it a few jogging steps to the table, then lists back toward Patrick, then laughs as he sways in limbo, "Oh boy, I have a few letters to write, Pat Gill."

Pat stares up at him, looking a bit gangly and uncomfortable the way he's sitting sprawled on the floor, but smiling wide and dimpled. "Are you really sure?"

"Yeah, I mean, you're the one making the big life change. Are _you_?"

"No!" Pat says, exasperated, and laughs and runs his hand through his hair with nervous energy, "But I'm not sure what I'd do if I stayed here, either." Pat drags his shaky fingers through his hair, betraying his nerves, but he's got an excited smile on his face.

"And, well, I'd rather be not sure with you."

"Alright. Okay. It's... it got late, wow. Let's—let's pick this up tomorrow. Or, okay, I'm going to make a checklist and you can help me with the checklist if you want to or you can add onto it later, but I think since it's mostly—what? What's so funny?" Brian's too happy, more happy than he knows what to do with, he can't just sit with it, he needs to channel it into something actionable or he will burst at the seams.

It takes a while for Pat, now laid out on his back and shaking bodily with the force of his laughter, to calm enough to say, "I was just grabbing you so hard I was _phasing_ and you're focused on checklists! You are such a nerd!"

And, well, he has a point that Brian can't deny, and he laughs along—though not as hard—and then sets his glasses on the table and does his best to look cool while brushing his hair back with his other hand, considering broadening his definitions of _something actionable_. "I can't help it if you can't focus when I'm around you."

"I cannot believe I want to go with you."

"But you do, right?"

"I really, really do."

 

Even in the midst of taking care of a flurry of logistics, the next few days feel surprisingly calm. Perhaps the town is seeking equilibrium, as it's been comfortably warm and quiet outside while Brian and Pat spend their spare moments scrabbling to get things together.

Brian writes his mother immediately—notes that if she receives both letters at once, that this one comes second chronologically—and sends much more abbreviated letters to Laura and Jonah. Aside from that, he can't do much more than wait and somehow carry on with thesis writing and vague intentions of packing before the absolute last minute.

Pat has a long meeting with Tara within a couple of days, resulting in a final agreement.

"So after five years, she'll let me buy the house if I'm still interested," Pat explains. "I gave her most of what I had saved for a down payment, and if I change my mind about it in five years, I'll get it back with interest."

"What about the field?" Brian asks, surprised by his own concern.

"She's gonna try to rent it out," Pat says with a satisfied smile. "Maybe even find a thesis candidate who's working on something agricultural. I talked about it with Simone already, she's got other sources. I think she was kind of doing me a favor, anyway."

"Wow. Okay. So when...?"

"Early fall's when she's going to have the next candidate start, so my plan is to be out before they get here. I need to arrange for someone to deal with harvesting the barley, so I might need to crash at Simone's for an extra week. Or sleep in the shed again." He gives a sly smile.

"This is happening!" Brian exclaims for what seems like the hundredth time in the last few days, grabbing Pat's hand and shaking it while he bounces on the balls of his feet.

"Yeah," Pat says, still as full of quiet disbelief this time as every other time he's responded in this exchange. 

Neither Pat nor Simone had given a full account of what exactly their conversation had entailed—not that Brian's _entitled_ to it, he's just so _curious_ —but from what Brian has gathered, it took a lot of wheedling to get Pat to admit he'd even been thinking about what Brian had said when he'd suggested they leave together. 

" _I can take care of myself just fine,_ " Simone had said while Brian was at her bar ostensibly to write. So maybe Pat thought he had to stay around for her sake?

" _She was pretty honest with me,_ " Pat had said at home. So maybe Simone had cut through his self-deprecation and doubts with familiar precision.

" _This means I'll finally have to take a vacation and come visit,_ " Simone had said. So maybe she had pushed him forward using her own selfish excuses to force him to consider what it was that he wanted for himself.

" _I really don't know what I was going to do,_ " Pat had said. " _And I was worried when I thought about what you'd said that you were just offering to be polite._ "

And Brian had brushed Pat's hair back and whispered soft reassurances.

" _Yeah, I_ know _. It just took a while for Simone to make me admit that I know, sometimes."_

 _"This is happening,_ " Brian had smiled, reassuring him, ruffling his hair.

" _Yeah,_ " Pat had said back in quiet awe as he turned his head up to kiss Brian's wrist.

And in the present, it doesn't matter to Brian exactly how Pat came about making this decision. The important parts are just that he made it himself and with relative confidence.

Also in the present, Brian really, _really_ does need to finish his thesis, which is what he tells Pat when he steps reluctantly toward the table.

"I'm genuinely almost done with it this time! I think by the end of tonight, if I can stay focused."

"I'll let you focus, then," Pat says. "We're supposed to go to Simone's house in a couple days for game night."

"Oh, shit, it's that soon?"

Pat laughs, "Please tell me you keep a calendar normally!"

"I swear I'm not like this all the time! But I'm also so busy thinking about all of the things I need to do in the next few days that I cannot remember what day I'm actually on."

"Okay, well just so we're clear, five more days."

Brian groans and lays his face flat on the table. "I'll finish it tonight," he says, muffled, and doesn't sit up again until he hears Pat's laughter cut off by the door shutting behind him. 

 

The problem with putting off the reality of leaving a place is that you spend your last few days in that place scrambling to get everything you need together rather than taking in a slow goodbye. 

The pockets of time Brian carves out for friends and rest don't have the feeling of finality he thought they would. Perhaps they were never going to, but it still feels strangely unreal when he goes to Clayton's for a few staples and leaves thinking, _I don't think I'm going to need to buy anything from here again_.

Game night with Simone and Jenna is just as raucous this time as it was the last. Brian's surprised when Tara arrives shortly after him and Pat, and mentions to her that he doesn't think he's seen her in a social setting since New Year's Eve.

"Yeah, I don't have a lot of free time during the day, but this was late enough," she says, "and I wanted to have a chance to find out how the last of your time here has been and say goodbye and pick your brain about what the next candidate needs or should know."

Simone claps her on the shoulder and says, firmly, "Games, Tara!" 

"Alright, alright!"

It's much the same as last time, though Simone guides Brian and Pat to the couch and takes up a chair for herself. No one says anything about the casual closeness between the two of them—not that it would impact anything if they did—but Brian catches smirks shared between Jenna and Tara when he leans up against Pat to explain a rule in the game they're playing.

The kitchen phase of the party is more involved on Brian's part this time, since Tara and Clayton haven't yet experienced his new abilities. Not that it seems to make a difference, since Jenna and Simone already have but they still want a taste of chocolate mint ice cream in spite of having bowls of it in their hands. And they can smirk all they want, but Pat's always going to get first dibs on tasting everything.

He even _preens_ when Simone calls him out for it, and Brian's so proud of him he almost ruins it by calling attention to it. He pockets this memory away for a long summer day.

There are fewer games near the end of the night. Everyone's social, instead, skirting around saying longer goodbyes than they'll have time for later. Brian writes his home address out four times and copies down three other addresses in the midst of telling everyone the full story of the winding path of his thesis subject.

Well, almost the full story. He's not going to fill in the blanks.

And even though he hugs everyone tight at the end of the night and thanks them for everything they've done and promises to stop by and say goodbye one last time before he leaves, it still doesn't feel like he's actually leaving.

At least now, he thinks when he leans his head on Pat while Simone drives them home and teases them mercilessly, when he looks back on leaving it will be with a comfortable fondness instead of some sort of profound finality. He thinks he might prefer this option, anyway.

 

Zuko's annoyed. That doesn't change anything that's being done, or that needs to be done, but he makes sure Brian knows anyway.

It's strange, how empty the witch house feels with all of Brian's belongings packed away in his trunk. The furniture's still there, it's hardly any less full volumetrically speaking, but all of those personal touches are gone.

He's laying on the ground with his legs up on top of the trunk, staring idly at the ceiling and thinking about how by the end of the night he'll be back with his family, and how absolutely bizarre that thought feels.

Pat steps into his view and peers down at him. "How're you feeling?"

"Weird."

"That's just you," he says and smirks when Brian bats at his leg. "You 'kay, though?"

"Yeah. I'm kind of nervous? Even though I'm just going home."

Pat hums and takes a seat on the trunk to get a better look at him. "I think you'll be fine. Just give it time. They're gonna love you."

That draws out a real laugh, at least.

"How long 'til Clayton's here?"

"Fifteen minutes if he's exactly on time."

"How is the drive once we leave?"

"I haven't been that way by car in a _long_ time. I think Simone said half hour?"

"Yeah, she did. Sorry, I just wanted to go over it again."

"You're good. We've got time to stop and say goodbye again."

Brian sighs and grabs his hat to pull over his eyes. "How are you so patient with me," he asks into the darkness of the hat.

"This is not you at your worst," Pat says, then adds when Brian kicks at him blindly, "It's fine. You're fine. Are you fine?"

"I'm fine."

The record player is packed up, along with all the records, but Pat stands and taps at Brian's legs and nudges him until he gets up as well so that he can hold him close and sway in the silence.

The windows are open and it's warm, the first hints of summer coming on and Brian can hear nothing but bugs and birds and leaves rustling and the quiet creaking of the floorboards under his feet while they turn quietly in more of a hug than a dance. He really will have to teach Patrick better than this.

"Do you want to have my winter cloak?" Brian asks into Pat's chest.

"Don't you need it?"

He shakes his head "I'll get new ones, after. Plus it's summer. I know it doesn't keep you warm, but, I have your shirt and all so I thought, y'know?"

Pat nods against his head, then manages a quiet, "Yeah."

Brian breaks away to get it out. He'd left it right on top of the trunk anyway, just waiting to offer it. Pat stands arms akimbo and lets Brian drape the cloak over him and fasten it, then slip his arms underneath and resume holding Pat close again. 

Pat adjusts his arms so that Brian's even further encased in the cloak, and he's just cold enough for it to be tolerable.

They hear Clayton's truck coming down the road about a minute before he arrives, and Brian feels a small panic. He'd already walked around inside and outside the house several times before leaving, double-checked that he'd left plenty of cinnamon by the water heater, made sure he hadn't left anything Pat couldn't lift out of place.

He rushes over to Charles, who's laying in the sun, and pulls him into a tight hug so he can murmur _thank you_ and _I'll see you soon_ and _take care of him for me_.

If Zuko has any goodbyes to say, they've been said already. He beats Pat out the front door once it's open and sits patiently beside the truck until Clayton opens the passenger door for him.

Brian hefts his trunk up and of _course_ he forgot to spell the wheels better for an entire _year_. 

"Hey, you all set?" Clayton asks while he helps lift the trunk into the bed of his truck.

"Yeah, pretty much, I just wanna take a sec if that's okay."

"Sure, no rush," Clayton nods, then turns to say something to Pat while Brian makes his way back to the door of the witch house.

He shuts it with a feeling of finality and presses his hand to the door, closing his eyes and thinking a sincere and non-magical _thank you_.

It's not until he's climbed in the truck and shut the door behind himself that he realizes Pat's still wearing his cloak.

The truck rumbles to life and Brian feels another acute jolt of worry. Everything is settled, all is well, and yet he keeps looking back with the fear that he might have forgotten to memorize the whorls in the wood floor, or the chip in the side of the sink, or the spider web outside the garden window.

Pat holds his hand tight and faces ahead while Brian watches the witch house recede from the rear window until it's out of sight. He turns to face forward as well and takes a deep, slow breath, squeezing Pat's hand once to let him know this wave has passed.

Clayton stops outside of Simone's as planned, and waves them on, opting to stay in the truck. Zuko also opts to stay in the truck, but his decision is ignored in favor of saying a proper goodbye.

"Brian!!" Simone and Jenna yell in chorus when he comes in.

"And Pat," Pat adds.

"Thank you both so much for everything," Brian says, hugging them in turn. "I know this is like our eighth goodbye this week, but I mean it every time."

"Don't forget to send me a copy of your thesis," Jenna tells him. "I want to be able to put my credits in spell-making on my resume."

"Oh shit, I almost forgot! I got out a few bottles of mine and Pat's beer for you to take home," Simone says, scurrying behind the counter and returning with two in each hand. "No labels and recycled bottles, that's how you know it's the good stuff."

"I really do want you to visit, both of you. I'm not just saying the polite thing you're supposed to say."

Simone gives her signature laugh and Jenna grins and nods and they both promise, again, for the eighth time, to do so.

In spite of his earlier protests, Zuko rubs his head against both of their faces without any prompting and allows them to pet him a few extra times for the road.

They hug yet again and Pat gets pulled in, too, in spite of his protests of, "I'm still here for a few months! I can't do this for three months!"

When they finally make it out the door, it even seems like Simone might be blotting at the corner of her eye.

Tara's outside talking to Clayton through his window when they exit, and she walks over with a harried, "Hey! I just had a minute to run over, I'm really glad I caught you again before you took off. It was so great to have you here, Brian, you're always welcome to come visit if you ever want to."

"Thank you so much for having me," he says politely in response, shaking her outstretched hand and then offering a hug anyway, grinning when she takes him up on it.

"The next witch we have is gonna have some big shoes to fill!" Tara turns and calls out to him while he's getting back in the truck, taking the middle seat this time.

The drive to Weybridge is unremarkable. Clayton's not one for smalltalk, and that suits Brian just fine. He's counting out measured breaths while Pat rubs his thumb over the back of Brian's hand.

The nerves never build up to anything, just keep buzzing quietly under his skin. Everything's going to plan, he's not going to miss his train, he just has to get there and say goodbye and get on a train. And it's only a temporary goodbye. It's so much better than he was expected.

Unfortunately, you can't always reason with nerves.

He's only seen this train station once before, leaving it a year ago, and so he doesn't even recognize it immediately at first. All of a sudden as they're approaching he just thinks, _oh, that might be it_.

Saying goodbye to Clayton involves little fanfare, at least. He's good with a quick hug and a promise to keep in touch and a kind, genuine thanks for joining in at game nights. He helps Brian lift his trunk out of the back of the truck and then contents himself with standing and waving as he departs with Pat following beside him.

The flap display inside the station is a little overwhelming at first, but Brian's able to confidently decipher what track his train will be departing from after a couple of minutes of talking it out under his breath.

It's not until he's figured that out that he realizes Pat seems nervous as well. He's standing very still and keeping very quiet and holding Brian's hand very tight.

"How long do you have?" Pat asks, looking at the board rather than at Brian.

"Twenty minutes until it leaves."

He hums, then looks around. "Want to go sit on the platform?"

"Yeah, let's do that. I think I'll feel better if I can see the train."

There's no train yet when they walk out onto the platform, but there are a few empty benches and Brian is plenty happy to stop having to hold up the handle of his trunk. Zuko hops onto the bench beside him and sits up attentively.

"This feels so weird," he says, sitting back and staring out at where the train will be.

"Think it'll feel weird when you get back?"

"Probably a little bit, at first. It always does if I've been away for a while, but then it gets familiar again." He rests his head against Pat's shoulder. "I hope it's not too weird for you when you come."

Pat shrugs lightly, and Brian rides the wave of the motion. "I'll get used to it if it is." They're quiet for a moment after that, and he asks, "What do you want to do when I get there?"

"Keep my mom and Laura from showing you all the cool shit they can do that I can't. Take you to my favorite restaurants. Go to the beach. Go to a movie. Maybe eventually figure out what we're going to do with our lives. I don't know... we can figure out what you're interested in doing when you get there through letters, if you don't want me to just surprise you with everything all at once."

"I haven't written a letter in _so_ long, I'm gonna do my best but I hope you're not expecting to actually be able to read them or anything."

"What's your favorite thing we did?" Brian asks, self-indulgent to the last.

They talk about their year together, each finding events that the other had found too insignificant to remember—" _You really need to work on sounding more unequivocally miserable when you're sick. You send some mixed signals!_ "—and eagerly sharing perspectives on days they hadn't already discussed in the preceding weeks—" _Wait so you dreamed about me? That's not fair, Patrick, you have to tell me!_."—filling in each others gaps in unreliable narration.

Brian tenses when the platform begins to rumble quietly with the train approaching in the distance but stays the course, continuing conversation louder and louder until he's drowned out by the roar of it stopping right in front of them.

They stay seated and silent while passengers disembark and others waiting on the platform board first and then there are only minutes left before departure at last.

Brian wheels his trunk over to an attendant and then returns to Pat, who's standing and tense. Zuko's sitting patiently at Pat's feet, ready when Brian is.

He means to say something to convey the impact Pat has had on him, how important he is, how lucky he feels, how he's so grateful that Pat is going to join him after all. If only the words would arrange themselves quickly enough to beat the ticking clock that's boring down on him heavier with every second.

So instead, he plunges into a tight hug, grabbing tight into Pat's shoulders and rocking him back and forth a few times before looking up and pausing to admire him before pulling him down into a deep kiss verging on inappropriate for public, just this side of clumsy and raw.

No one else exists right now, as far as Brian is concerned. _Let me have this_.

"I'm going to miss you so much, thank you so much, I love you so much," Brian murmurs desperately while somehow clinging and receding and holding on and letting go and he's right beside the doors when they announce the final boarding call over the intercom and it's _just a few months_ but it makes something in his heart ache anyway, to leave him for any time at all.

Zuko has already crossed the threshold of the train and is waiting, keeping his feelings to himself in an uncanny act of consideration.

Pat says, "wait, wait," and digs around inside the cloak for a moment before producing an opaque jar and handing it off to Brian, securing it in his hands by folding his own larger hands around them. "Soon, I promise. I'll see you soon. It'll be no time, I'll write you. I—" he chokes up and nods through it and Brian can feel his throat tightening in sympathy, "Take care. I'll see you soon."

Brian nods and steps back and smiles and then turns his immediate focus onto his train ticket, finding his seat, staying composed.

He's not far back, just a ways further down the platform than they were sitting. He can still see Pat, who can still see him because he's waving, but how?—oh, yes, the big hat.

The train rolls slowly forward less than a minute after he sits down, and Pat doesn't run down the platform but they keep waving to each other until they're both out of sight.

Brian sighs and stares out the window a while longer while his mind stops racing. Zuko rubs his head against Brian's hand and even lets him in on some rare affectionate feelings.

It takes a while for his meditative staring to yield to the spark of excitement at going home again, now that the difficult goodbyes have been said. He straightens his back and adjusts to settle in for the ride and only then remembers that he's holding a jar from Pat.

The lid pops open satisfyingly, a small folded note barely obscuring a couple handfuls of bright red strawberries below.

His heart melts and he wiggles excitedly in his seat, prompting Zuko to flee his lap for the empty seat beside him.

He plucks a small berry from the top and hums happily around the sweet summer taste of it. It could be that it's just been a while, or that he's biased, but he thinks it might be the best strawberry he's ever eaten.

The berry-induced bliss overcomes him so strongly that it's not until he bites into the third strawberry that he remembers there was a note in the jar as well, and he stains the white paper with red berry juice as he unfolds it to read the unsteady handwriting, varied enough that each line may have been written at different times.

 

__

_I grew these for you.  
Can't wait to see you again.  
You're amazing._

_Love, Pat_

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] seasons unanticipated](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21247127) by [DemiboyPodfics (DemiBoyDoesStuff)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DemiBoyDoesStuff/pseuds/DemiboyPodfics)




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